


The New Normal

by servantofclio



Series: Sewers to Stars [13]
Category: Mass Effect, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 20:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4152594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/servantofclio/pseuds/servantofclio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>April and Donnie have decided to get together... now everyone has to get used to the new normal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story starts immediately after my previous story in this series, "Life is Like a Song." 
> 
> Thanks to theherocomplex for reading this chapter over, and to probablylostrighnow for consultation. :)

_2184  
_

In the morning, Donnie tastes like coffee. 

Well, of course he does. April’s coffee maker is automated to have her coffee ready before she heads out to early-morning training, and last night she had the presence of mind to set it for triple the usual amount of coffee. She even waited until Donnie, eyes half-open, had gulped down his first mug before she went for the kiss. The coffee left its flavor and heat in his mouth, and hers, and April luxuriates in the taste and the lingering warmth of it. And him. She smiles as she pulls away just far enough to look up at him through her eyelashes, at how he somehow manages to be wide-eyed but still drowsy-looking. “Good morning,” she says. 

He blinks, and his face settles into a soft, blissful smile. “G’morning.” 

“You want anything for breakfast?” She pulls away reluctantly, but she hasn’t finished her own coffee, and she needs at least a couple mouthfuls of yogurt before she can face training. 

“I’ll eat after.” He pours himself another cup of coffee. This one, at least, he drinks a little more slowly. 

“Okay.” April cracks open a container of raspberry yogurt and swirls it around with a spoon. “You said last night you wanted to keep things between us for a while. How do you want to play this?” 

“That’s a question that requires more coffee.” 

April smiles and sticks the spoonful of yogurt in her mouth, waiting while Donnie finishes his second cup and blinks, eyes scrunching in concentration. “For now we should act normal, if you’re okay with that.” 

“Oh, I can act normal.” April takes another bite. “So normal means no hugging or kissing or flirting—” She leans back against the kitchen counter, attempting to give him a sultry look. 

“Ummm... right,” says Donnie. “While anyone else is around, at least.” His eyes dart toward her and away, and she thinks he’s starting to blush, but he says, “I need to think. I’m not sure how to ease them into this.” 

“Mm.” April drops the pose and licks off her spoon. “Start with Mikey.” 

“That does sound like a fantastic way to ensure I don’t have to inform anyone else myself,” Donnie says dryly. “No, let me think about it for a day or two. Maybe I should talk to Sensei first, or... maybe I should just tell everyone at once. We should head out, though. Are you ready?” 

April scoops up the last berries from the bottom of the container and pops them in her mouth. “Just a sec.” She tosses the spoon in the sink, the container into the recycler, and throws herself at Donnie. He catches her, of course, his arms bracing her, solid and sure, and that lets her fling her arms around his neck and claim his mouth for another coffee-flavored kiss. “I have to get my moments while I can,” she says. 

Donnie’s a little flushed and stares at her before breaking into a slow smile. “I can arrange for more moments.” 

“Good.” She gives his shoulders a last squeeze before stepping back and smoothing her hair into place. “Okay. Acting normal. Let’s go.”

 

#

 

It’s harder to act normal than Donnie had expected. 

It had been one thing when he didn’t know where they stood. Then April had been gone, away to the Citadel, and even though they’d exchanged their fair share of messages, she hadn’t been _there_ to distract him with her smile or the scent of her hair. 

But now he knows very well where they stand, and he’d awakened in her bed, on rumpled flannel sheets, too aware of that scent, of the soft strands of hair tickling his shoulder and the warm puffs of April’s breath against his skin. He’d lain there silently for a few minutes, just taking in the sensations, half convinced he could hear the regular rhythm of her heart from where she lay sprawled on her side. Then her alarm had blared, loud and insistent, and the aroma of percolating coffee had drifted through the air, and April had groaned and rolled over to slap the alarm before she blinked up at him in the mostly-darkness of her bedroom. Her smile, when it came, was slow and bright, and she’d breathed out the words “good morning” like she was afraid she might break a spell. 

Then it was coffee and kisses and a brisk run to the lair through the frigid January morning, but he’s supposed to be focused on training and it’s hard to empty his mind of the warmth of April’s bed and the strength of her slim arms. Stretches and katas are bad enough; now that April’s back and practicing with them, he keeps catching glimpses of her out of the corner of his eye. The curve of her hips and the elegant lines of her arms and legs keep catching his attention. Donnie has spent, quite literally, years suppressing the urge to watch April in inappropriate ways. But it’s not inappropriate any more, is it? He’s allowed to look. Encouraged, even, allowed to share her bed and hold her in his arms. 

The distraction is even worse when they switch over to paired sparring. April’s not paired with him, thank Darwin; but she’s paired with Mikey instead, and that’s... arresting. It’s a contest of speed against speed, and Mikey keeps up his usual stream of taunting and teasing, so Donnie can hear the sound of April’s bubbling laughter even when he’s not looking at her. When he _is_ looking in her direction, he’s caught by the speed and grace of her motion, the swish of her ponytail— 

And Raph, _of course_ , takes full advantage of Donnie’s distraction, and he ends up flat on his shell twice. At least Raph saunters off to the shower in a good mood, Donnie reflects sourly as he picks himself off the floor. 

“You seemed distracted this morning,” Leo comments. “Everything okay?” 

_Act normal_. “Fine,” Donnie says, biting back the urge to over-explain. “Just thinking about some of Shepard’s data.” 

Leo, being Leo, doesn’t just leave it there. “Anything we need to know about?” 

“Not yet. Lots of pieces to put together.” Donnie manages to keep his tone casual, he thinks. “I think April said she had some things to tell us tonight,” he adds, in hopes of getting Leo off his shell. 

Leo frowns. “Anything serious?” 

Donnie shrugs. “She didn’t sound too urgent about it last night.” 

“Right, sorry.” Leo looks sheepish, and Donnie has a brief pang of guilt. Leo’s only looking out for him, after all, subtly worrying in a very Leo-like way. “Go on, it’s your turn for the shower,” Leo adds, and Donnie’s grateful enough to make his escape, guilty feeling and all. 

Between the shower and breakfast, he doesn’t get a chance to get April alone until she heads out to work, and Donnie follows her just out of sight of the lair’s entrance. “You were very distracting this morning,” he tells her in a low voice. 

April takes that in, head tilted, and then breaks out into a sly, crooked smile. “Oh, really? You’re just going to have to work harder on focusing, Mr. Ninja.” She pokes him in the plastron with a finger. 

“I can focus,” Donnie protests. 

April isn’t done yet. “Do you know how I know that?” Another tap. “Because I’ve had to learn not to be distracted by _you_ over the last few months.” 

Donnie stares, trying to remember if he ever noticed April watching him. She’s watching him now, blue eyes bright. The mere idea that she would, that he has an effect on her similar to the one she has on him is startlingly warming. “Oh,” he says. “Oh. You—” 

“I have to get to work,” she says, quietly, and stretches up to press the lightest kiss to his mouth. “I’ll message you.” 

“Right,” he says. 

He’s supposed to be acting normal, so he shouldn’t be watching her go until she disappears down the darkened tunnel, off to join millions of people as they head to work in the morning. He can’t help but linger, though, watching the gleam of her red hair vanish into the dark. 

He waits for an hour and a half, time that’s filled with mundane tasks like helping to clean up after breakfast and fixing Mikey’s game system. Enough time for April to make it into the lab, get checked in, get caught up on what she missed while she was gone, and then he sends her a message: 

_So I’ve been distracting you?  
_

He waits, tapping his fingers idly against the desk, for the few minutes until the reply appears. 

_Terribly. Why? Do you want to know how?  
_

_Maybe._ He does, actually. The desire to know, once lit, has him burning with curiosity, even though a little fear lurks underneath. It seems almost too good to be real, that April would genuinely, wholeheartedly be attracted to his ungainly, unnatural mutant body. 

But the next thing April writes is: _You’re so graceful.  
_

_Graceful_ is not a word Donnie had ever particularly thought to apply to himself, but he doesn’t get a chance to say so, because April’s still writing: _Strong, but lean, not bulky. That really does it for me. Also your smile, and your eyes, and dammit I have a staff meeting in fifteen minutes_. 

Donnie’s face has grown hot. _I’m sorry_ , he writes, instantly chagrined. _Now I really am distracting you_. 

_I do need to work_ , April sends back. _But I’ll show you what gets me distracted. Later._

They both sign off, but _later_ lingers like a promise. Donnie turns the thought over and over, staring at his screen without registering what’s on the display. April’s attracted to him. April wants him. Last night there was kissing, and gentle, soft touches. Tonight, or tomorrow night, there might be more, and it’s _April_. Beautiful, brilliant April, who deserves only the best from him. He has some research to do— Donnie casts a swift glance over his shoulder. _Later_. Alone. Sometime when there’s minimal risk of being interrupted by any of his brothers. 

Ten minutes later it occurs to him that April might need some information, too. There are a few things she should know, and it’s not as if she can just look them up...

 

#

 

April’s staff meeting lasts an hour and a half. In her opinion, that’s about an hour too long for any meeting, especially one without anything to eat. She drags herself back to her desk, already hungry for lunch, and checks the messages on her omni-tool. She’d silenced it during the meeting, but she’d felt the telltale vibration of an incoming file. 

A sizable file, as it happens, and she frowns as she sees the accompanying note. 

_Thought you should see this. Private info only. D.  
_

It’s encrypted, which is the norm if Donnie needs her to take a look at something. That also explains why it was sent directly to her personal omni-tool, so she wouldn’t open anything that might be a problem on her work machine. She’s got the other half of the encryption key, and starts it up, curious and alarmed. Did he find something critical in Shepard’s files? It’s hard to imagine what else it could be, since everything was fine when she left the lair a few hours ago. 

But the file, as the decryption completes, turns out to be something else entirely. April blinks at the sketches and then peers closer at the rather clinical descriptions that follow. She bites her lip, trying to stop herself from laughing, and covers her cheek with her free hand to hide her blush. Anatomical references. _Mutant turtle_ anatomical references, which she doesn’t know how to feel about at all, except to think _oh, Donnie_. 

She closes the file, fast. The last thing she needs is someone noticing her beet-red face and asking what’s going on, or accidentally peering over her shoulder. She needs to focus on work, and pretend she didn’t see any of that, if she has even half a hope of getting anything done today. She’s due to the lair for dinner, and she has things to tell them then—but maybe she can take a quick peek beforehand. 

And talk to Donnie after.

 

#

 

“Aaaapril!” Mikey cries as soon as she hops over the turnstiles. “How was the Citadel? What was it like? Were there lots of aliens?” 

There wasn’t supposed to be any chatter during morning training, and April had zipped through the bathroom and gone to work right after, so Mikey hadn’t had a chance to talk to her at _all_ , and that just sucked, especially when she’d come back from someplace as cool as the Citadel. At least, it looked cool on vids, huge and white and full of people, and now April can tell him all about it. 

“The Citadel was okay,” April says, giving him a hug. “The Presidium looked back to normal, actually, though there’s still some damage to the wards. And yes, there were lots of aliens. Need any help with dinner?” 

“Nah, I got it covered,” Mikey says. “But you could hang out and tell me all about it? Please? Unless you gotta go say hi to Donnie and the others or something?” 

April smiles. “I’ll talk to Donnie later. Why don’t I set the table?” 

“Cool.” Mikey goes back to stirring the pasta sauce. “So was it as big as it looks? And do you walk around upside-down?” 

“It’s so big I almost couldn’t believe I was on a space station,” April says, getting out a stack of mismatched plates from the cupboard. “It just doesn’t look like a station at all, especially on the Presidium. It has artificial gravity, though, so it never feels like you’re upside down.” 

He asks her all the questions he can think of—are there really fountains, and are there any fish in them, and what do Keepers sound like, and how many aliens there were—while April sets the table and he puts the finishing touches on dinner. 

“There were a lot of aliens at the funeral, even.” April’s mouth turns down and her eyes look sad. “I saw some of Shepard’s crew.” 

“Really?” It’s good that they went. At least there was somebody there who really knew Shepard, even if they didn’t know her all the way back. He feels better knowing she had real friends there. 

“Yeah.” April sighs. “Actually, that’s something we’re going to need to talk about.” 

Mikey holds up a hand. “Food first, April. These things are important.” He’s gotta keep watch on these people all the time, or every meal turns into serious stuff. 

They haul in Splinter from the dojo and Leo from his room, and April goes and fetches Donnie from his lab. Raph and Casey show up while she’s out of the room, just come down from Casey’s place, stomping around and dropping their winter gear and complaining about the cold. They’re noisy enough that Mikey almost doesn’t notice when April and Donnie come out of the lab. They’re not looking at each other, even though Donnie’s talking about today’s research whatsit, and they’re both sort of smiling, just a little bit. It’s normal enough, except for the not looking at each other, which is just a little bit off. Huh. 

Dinner conversation goes just like usual, though. Everybody wants to know about April’s trip, but she also wants to know about whether she missed anything, even though she was only gone for a couple of days, so half the time everyone’s talking at once. Donnie laughs a little too long at something April says, which isn’t unusual, but it also takes him a weirdly long time to pass her the salt, like they’re both holding the saltshaker at once for a while, and that’s when Mikey really starts to pay attention. 

He doesn’t think anyone else has noticed. The best thing about tonight, honestly, isn’t just that April’s back home again, but that everyone actually seems cool and relaxed and not so sad. They’re not going to stop being sad all the way, of course, because they’ll always miss Shepard, but this is good. It feels like normal again. Even Raph’s not so grumpy tonight. And it makes sense, if everyone’s feeling better, that they’re just enjoying that, and not really noticing that something’s up with Donnie and April. Mikey starts watching, after the salt thing—he’s sitting right across from Donnie, so it’s hard not to see that—and he doesn’t think he’s imagining it. Maybe they’ve edged their chairs a little closer together than usual. They might be looking at each other a little more often. _Innnteresting_. 

The dinner dishes get cleared, and Mikey plops a pan of made-that-day brownies on the table. Dessert or no, the mood shifts. Leo leans forward, elbows on the table, and says, “Donnie said there was something you needed to tell us, April?” 

She sighs, slouching back in her chair. “Yeah. At the service, I happened to see some of Shepard’s crew...” 

While she talks, Mikey’s attention wanders back to Donnie, who’s watching April intently. Which is normal, right, because April’s talking, but he still seems a little more focused on her than normal. 

“So... if it wasn’t a geth ship, what was it?” Leo asks slowly when April’s done. 

She spreads her hands. “They’re sure it wasn’t a Reaper, either. But they’re not sure what it was.” 

Donnie frowns. “There’s been nothing in the news to even hint that it wasn’t a geth ship that attacked the _Normandy_.” 

“Nothing at all?” Leo asks. 

“Well, nothing from reputable sources. The conspiracy-theory people on the extranet have all kinds of theories, but they always do. I didn’t see any reason to take them seriously.” 

“What’s the best crackpot theory?” Casey asks. 

“That Saren Arterius somehow faked his death and went after Shepard out of revenge,” Donnie says. 

“And you’re reading this shit _why_?” Raph mutters, slouching in his chair. 

“Metalhead’s actually the one scanning the extranet chatter. He just gives me summaries of the most interesting stuff,” Donnie says. “But... honestly, he’s been monitoring them because that’s where people are talking about Reapers. The mainstream news sources, including the official Alliance and Council PR people, have been denying any Reaper involvement. It appears that the attack on the Citadel is being treated as the act of the geth and a rogue turian Spectre, and that’s it.” 

The silence hangs heavy around the table. Mikey shifts uneasily. “But Shepard said,” he says. Shepard had told _them_ about the Reapers, and Shepard wouldn’t lie. Not to them. 

“She did,” Leo says slowly and carefully. “And she said she told her superiors, too. So it’s a cover-up.” 

“Isn’t that just fuckin’ perfect,” Casey grumbles. 

“They might just be trying to keep the general public from panicking,” says Donnie, but he’s frowning and he doesn’t sound convinced. “But I don’t think concealing the truth is doing anyone any favors. The Reapers are still out there, and the galaxy needs to prepare for them.” 

“Just one Reaper did a number on the fleets,” Raph points out. 

“Have you gotten anything from Shepard’s files, Donnie?” Leo asks. Mikey steals a glance at him, and almost wishes he hadn’t. Leo’s smile is totally gone and he’s gone into strategery mode, cold and serious. 

“There’s a ton of information, but not much on effective ways to fight back,” Donnie says. “I’m trying, but... it’s going to take a while. And now I need to hack into the Alliance servers and see if I can find anything more on the ship that destroyed the _Normandy_. Metalhead will help, of course, but—” 

“I’ll help, too,” April says firmly. 

Donnie glances at her and a smile flickers over his face. “Thanks, April.” 

“We’re going to need to stockpile,” Leo says slowly, considering. “Food, water, whatever we can. Back-up power.” 

Casey says, “We can put stuff out at the farm, too.” 

Leo nods. “Good idea. We may need to leave the city. They could hit anywhere, not necessarily Earth, but if they do come, we’ll need to be ready. And we don’t know how long we have.” 

Well, that’s a thought that just does not sit well with brownies and milk. This is why Mikey hates talking battle plans over food. Sensei looks calm, like usual, but even his ears are down. Raph and Casey are both scowling and Leo looks like he’s about to go to war. Mikey sighs and steals a glance across the table. Donnie’s looking at April again, and tilted a little toward her, and Mikey can’t see either of their hands above the table.


	2. Chapter 2

“So, did you get the—” 

“I got your files,” April says, shutting the window and closing the curtains. No one had looked suspicious at Donnie’s offer to walk her home, which is good, because she urgently needs to talk to him about those files. 

“Oh. Good. Did you have a chance to go through them?” 

April takes a deep breath before she turns to face Donnie. She did, in fact, glance through the information before she headed down to the lair. She’s also pretty sure she knows what she’ll see when she turns around, and a glance confirms that she’s right. Donnie’s looking at her with a hopeful, earnest expression that she has absolutely no resistance to. “I did,” she says. And hadn’t that made _interesting_ reading. He’d included a good portion of his general observations on his and his brothers’ physiology, not just the material on genitalia, so her face had grown warm as she she paged through material that was by turns dryly clinical, intellectually fascinating, and fuel for arousing fantasies. It was all so incredibly awkward, and yet the memory of what she’d scanned through brings a flush back to her cheeks, and even sends a thrill of warmth through her. 

“And I suppose you must have some questions?” He’s still watching her expectantly. Nervousness ripples across his psyche in a gentle wave, along with anticipation and uncertainty. 

April takes a breath. She has to tread carefully here. Both of them have a limited degree of sexual experience, so far as she knows, and to be honest, even less experience at long-term romance. For herself, April can count a handful of boyfriends, and just a couple of casual sexual encounters—that’s never really been her thing—and even then she’s got the lead on Donnie in that department, she’s fairly certain. So she gets that this, this bundle of embarrassingly intimate information is a strange kind of gift, born of his insecurities and his attention to detail and his desire to make sure she has all the information she should. It’s only now, looking at him watching her, earnest and hopeful and wary all at once, that she realizes he’s offering her an _out_ , a chance to back away if she can’t handle their physical differences. _Ahem. Nice choice of words there, April._

His expression flickers, and April makes herself move before that hopefulness can crumble into disappointment. She sits beside him on the loveseat and puts her hands over his. A part of her notices how small her hands look next to his, how smooth and many-fingered; the rest of her thinks those differences are superficial next to what unites them. “Donnie,” she says. “I really appreciate it, but I don’t really want to sit here and do an anatomical Q & A. I mean—” she gently knocks her knuckles against his plastron “—I know you’re not exactly human.” 

He’s frowning now, confusion flickering across his face and filtering through his thoughts. “Okay,” he says. “But, April—” 

She bites her lip to stop herself from breaking in, but Donnie hesitates anyway, his gaze flickering to her mouth and then back to her eyes. “I just,” he says—mumbles, really. “I thought it would be good if both of us were... prepared.” 

She smiles, completely and helplessly. “You have no idea how much I love you right now,” she blurts out, and has to lean in to kiss him before the startled confusion disappears from his face. Then she says, “That is so thoughtful, and you’re not wrong, it’s just... I think we can figure this out... experientially. Don’t you?” She walks her fingers up his wrist and arm, by way of demonstration. 

“Experientially,” Donnie says, and she can just about feel the understanding blossoming behind his eyes. 

“I mean, we’re both adults,” April says. “And we’re friends, and who knows each other better than we do?” She leans forward, growing more confident, and Donnie shifts automatically, curling an arm around her shoulders. “So we can just... get to know each other even better. Observation and experience. Trial and error. ” 

“I was hoping to reduce the possibility of error,” he says, but he’s half smiling, and his eyes are warm, and his anxiety has receded. 

“Can’t be eliminated, we both know that,” April replies promptly, smiling back. “But I think the reading you sent has established some parameters for experimentation, and I’m more interested in moving to the practical than in getting a quiz over the—” 

He kisses her then, and she loses herself in the warmth of it before he says, good-humored, “Okay, I get it,” and kisses her jawline, and then starts working his way down her neck, delicate, slow, soft kisses. April’s breath goes out in a rush as she shivers. “I approve that technique,” she says, her voice going breathless. She knows he’ll be filing that reaction away. “And for another example, I know you have feeling in your shell, but how much?” She reaches in to run her fingers up and down his sides, feeling out the grooves and nicks in the bridge of his shell, waiting for any response. So she feels the subtle flinch, how he shies away from her touch on one side, and the muffled snort of breath against her neck. She brushes against the spot again, just to see, and he jumps a little more, reaching lightning-fast to seize her hand before she can do it a third time. 

“April—” 

“ _Donatello_ ,” she says, delighted beyond words with her discovery. “Are you _ticklish_? On your _bridge_?” 

“Just a little,” he says, muffled. 

“How did I not _know_ this?” she exclaims, trying to twist her hand out of his grip. 

Donnie lifts his head from her shoulder. “You think with three brothers and Casey around, I’m going to let anyone know about _that_ weakness?” 

It’s a fair point, but April’s not done: “But it’s me,” she protests. “You think I’d take advantage?” 

“Yes.” His grip doesn’t slacken, so April tries another tack. 

“Is that the only spot?” Her right hand is still free, so she goes back to exploring his left side. 

Donnie’s eyes narrow. “Oh, is that the way you want to play it, Dr. O’Neil?” 

She’s got a split second to think that her title sounds kind of hot in that tone of voice before he makes his move, and she shrieks as his fingers go skittering down her sides, and then there’s a brief but hard-fought tickle fight that ends with April squirming on her back on the couch, gasping, “Mercy! Mercy!” 

Donnie stops immediately. “Okay?” he asks, and at April’s nod, adds, “I assume you see the consequences of pursuing the tickling agenda.” 

“Tell you what,” April says, once she has a little of her breath back. “How about I don’t tickle you, and you don’t tickle me?” 

He makes only a brief show of thinking it over before saying, “Deal,” and giving her a smile so warm and bright and fond that it sets her heart beating faster. She becomes very aware, too, of their position, of the way he’s leaning over her, their bodies almost flush, and of the heat that’s starting to pool between her legs. 

They’re supposed to be taking things slow, she reminds herself. Donnie said that, only a day ago, and she doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to rush him. They can take their time. 

But he’s got a serious look, and bends to kiss her, leaving her breathless again. She shifts and arches, relishing how solid he is as their bodies slide together, how the muscles in his shoulders move under her hands. She could be happy like this, each kiss warming her more, slipping deeper and deeper into contact, but it feels selfish to just sink into this dizzying spell. She wants to make sure, with words, rather than just spying on the hazy cloud of pleasure enclosing them both, so she pauses for breath and licks her lips and speaks before things can go any further. 

# 

“I thought you wanted to take things slow?” 

April voice ticks up at the end of the soft-voiced sentence. Definitely a question, not an accusation, but Donnie pulls back anyway, grimacing. His body protests any diminished contact, and a voice in his head that sounds like a frantic fifteen-year-old babbles _no no no just keep kissing her, she’s letting me kiss her, what if she changes her mind later, don’t stop_. 

He looks down at April, and that doesn’t help much. She’s still clothed, but her shirt is wrinkled and rumpled and twisted around her torso, showing flashes of pale skin between the buttons. Her cheeks are pink, her winter-pale freckles almost disappearing into it, and there’s a flush spreading down her throat, too, along with a couple of redder marks he hadn’t realized he was leaving. She’s breathing hard, every movement of her chest distractingly visible, and her teeth press into her lower lip—is it just his imagination, or are her lips, too, flushed and swollen? He’s never seen her look more wanton. 

Wrong word, he corrects himself almost immediately. _Wanting_ , not _wanton_ , and who is he to deny her anything she might want? Denying her _and_ himself seems like possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever contemplated, but... he’s not fifteen any more. He doesn’t need to cling to every scrap of April’s attention. “I did,” he admits. He should pull away, if he’s going to follow through on that intention, but April raises her eyebrows in silent inquiry, and her hands are still loosely clasped behind his neck. Besides that, he doesn’t want to move, so he indulges for a moment more. He searches for words to answer the question hanging between them, and admits, “It feels... greedy.” So much, so soon; is it right to grab for everything so quickly? Only a few days since they exchanged their first kisses, only a day ago that they talked this over, and he said _let’s take things slow_ then, so what’s his hurry now? 

“Mmm,” April says, and brushes one hand along the side of his neck, her fingers skimming over his shoulder and down his arm. “I get that. I’m feeling a little greedy myself.” 

And here he is, spoiling the moment. “Sorry,” Donnie sighs, glancing away from April to the neutral surface of the floor. Pushing himself away, too, gaining a few centimeters of space between them. 

“Don’t be.” She touches his chin, but doesn’t force him to meet her eyes. Instead, her touch lingers there as she pulls herself up and kisses him on the cheek. When he looks back at her, startled, she’s giving him a wry smile. “I want everything all at once,” she says, like a confession, brushing the mussed hair out of her face with her free hand. “I’ve been thinking about this for long enough that... there are a lot of things I want. But you haven’t been thinking about this as long, and I don’t want to push you into anything.” 

She’s not quite correct on that count. He’s been thinking about this—or trying not to—for years. But his adolescent fantasies didn’t get much further than—well, than _this_ , and what he’s imagined as an adult already doesn’t quite measure up to the reality of being here, this close to her, or to the look in her eyes and the sound of the breathy little gasps she makes. “You’re not,” he says, but he still feels the hooks of guilt. He should be giving her everything she wants, not holding back for no reason he can articulate. 

“Hey,” April says. “There’s no way to get this wrong.” 

He smiles at her ruefully. “You sure about that?” 

“Absolutely positive,” she says. Her voice rings with conviction, and her eyebrows have pulled down into that familiar determined look—the one she gets when she’s trying to learn something new, or when someone tells her she can’t do something. “Fast or slow or in-between, whatever we both want. I’m not going anywhere. Are you?” 

“Of course not,” he says automatically. 

April gives him a firm, decisive nod, her lips set. _This_ look is April about to execute a battle plan, April committing to an experiment. Donnie loves this look, and a certain tightness eases in his chest. He doesn’t have to indulge the needy, anxious voice in the back of his head. He can take April at her word, trust both her words and her actions, and do what feels right, one step at a time. He leans down to kiss her again, gentler than before. There’s no fumbling, though, they fit together in spite of the variance in size and shape. April’s lips are soft, and she hums happily. This is good. Kissing works. He can do this. They can do this, together. 

Eventually she strokes the back of his neck and says, “You’re all knots.” 

“It’s not that bad,” Donnie says. 

“We’ll see about that,” she says, tapping his shoulder. “Get up.” 

He sighs, but obeys, and they shift around so that April’s sitting upright and Donnie’s sitting on the floor in front of her. She braces her knees against his carapace and starts massaging his neck and shoulders, and within moments he has to concede her point. There’s stiffness there that he hadn’t even registered, entirely too used to it. Plus, while he knew April was strong, he’d never quite realized how strong her hands are, as her slim, calloused fingers mercilessly dig into his muscles. For a minute he hates everything, within five minutes he loves her and her hands more than he ever thought possible, and by ten minutes his head has fallen bonelessly forward. 

Which is, of course, when his ‘tool goes off with an incoming call. 

“Shit,” he mutters, glances at his display, and answers. “Hey, Leo.” 

“Hey, Donnie,” says Leo in a carefully restrained tone, the one that says more than words _where the hell are you, I’ve been worried_. “Everything okay? I thought you were coming right back.” 

“Sorry,” Donnie says, checking the time and wincing. “April and I got to talking, that’s all. Everything’s fine. I’m on my way back.” 

He winces again as soon as the words come out, but he can’t take it back, because Leo says, “Okay, great, see you in fifteen?” and clicks off without waiting for an answer. 

“On your way back?” April asks. Donnie leans his head back and looks at her warily, but she’s smiling. 

“Yeah,” he says, and reluctantly gets to his feet. “Leo’s been, ah, extra vigilant lately.” 

She nods, unsurprised. “Come over tomorrow night? Maybe for dinner?” 

“It’s a date,” he says. 

April looks up from where she sits on the couch, her cheeks still a little pink. “Yeah, it is,” she says. 

# 

To get away for dinner, all Donnie has to do is say that April wants him to come over and consult on her work projects. No one evinces the least amount of suspicion; minimal amounts of interest, in fact. It’s a long-established habit that Donnie and April talk over their mutual projects, after all. The whole day is otherwise perfectly ordinary: coffee, training, breakfast, retreating to his lab to tinker with modifications to the security system and continue his review of Shepard’s data, getting dragged out later to play games with Mikey. The only thing out of the ordinary is that his customary brief chats with April during the work day include a little flirtation. It’s all so normal that he could almost forget the warmth and intimacy of the last two days... but he doesn’t. He holds them close, instead: the memory of April’s scent, the movement of her lips, the soft sounds she makes. 

Nobody bats an eye when Donnie calls out his farewells and takes off through the dark of a winter evening to April’s apartment. That feels ordinary, too. The habits of covering his tracks, choosing a route he didn’t take last time, sticking to the shadows are all permanently ingrained, and he sees nothing unusual on the journey. When he gets there and slides open the window, April’s apartment smells of pasta puttanesca, one of the few dishes she cooks at all regularly. She’s not much of a cook at all, to be honest, and tends to live on takeout or come down to the lair for whatever they’re having. The aroma of this dish is reassuringly familiar, though; it’s what she makes when she feels like putting in a little effort. The two of them have had it together at least a dozen times. 

He enters the apartment and closes the window with only a quiet thump, and—there are glasses of wine on the table, and candles, which isn’t normal at all. Donnie blinks at the sight. “So... you were serious about this being a date,” he says. 

April looks over her shoulder from the kitchen with a smile, pretty and comfortable in dark pants and a blue turtleneck that matches her eyes. “Of course I was,” she says. “Is it okay if we really do talk about work, though? There were a few things today that I’m trying to get my head around.” 

“Sure,” he says, and sits. There’s not enough room in her little kitchen for both of them to work, a fact they established long ago. So he sits, and sips the wine while she finishes up the sauce, and April talks through a couple of experimental problems and some irritating workplace politics. That’s all completely normal, too. 

But she kisses the top of his head as she puts the food in front of them, and that’s not routine at all; and when they watch a documentary on the hanar’s path to spaceflight after dinner (totally normal), but April leans into his side and nibbles on the side of his neck, and altogether there’s more kissing than learning about hanar spaceships. Donnie really has no complaints.

The newfound closeness, this romance, fits into their lives so smoothly and easily. Donnie made a choice to believe, but a day like this makes April’s promise sink in: _There’s no way to get this wrong_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait for this chapter! It took longer than I thought to come together. Future updates should be rather more frequent. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to theherocomplex for her thoughtful comments!

The next day at training, Leo announces a patrol that night, for the first time in two weeks. The first time since Shepard died. 

It makes sense. Thinking it over, Donnie agrees. There’s been a break in the weather, the temperature rising above freezing for the first time in two weeks; there’s no immediate crisis, so they can get back into a groove without a lot of pressure. The initial shock and grief are passing, certain individuals are starting to get restless, so it’s time for them all to get back into a normal routine. 

All six of them go out. That’s overkill, frankly, but Donnie suspects that none of them want to lose sight of each other, even if nobody says it. They start off tight and silent, and it takes forty minutes of running, one after another, careful of their footing on this wet, chilly evening, before things feel normal again. Forty minutes of climbing and running, sticking to the shadows, practicing patterns as familiar to all of them as their own names. 

By that time everyone’s warm and loosened up, and when Leo signals a halt, that initial tension has bled off, and their breath steaming in the air. That’s when Leo divides them, into trios rather than pairs—Leo takes Raph and Casey to circle east, leaving Donnie, April, and Mikey to take the west. 

Donnie keeps half an eye on April as they move. Dressed in dark thermals from head to toe, she’s a piece of shadow, only a pale strip of skin around her eyes showing as she moves from one rooftop to another. She’s sleek and dark, eyes narrowed with focus, and—he’s had cause to admire her form, but the sight of her now is doing something funny to his pulse. When she glances over her shoulder at him, the curves of her body a dark outline barely visible against the dirty clouds of the sky, he swallows and has to look away. He takes a moment to scan the horizon and breathe deeply, counting to ten to cool himself off, before catching up to her and Mikey in a few long strides. 

“Donnie,” Mikey whispers from his perch at the edge of the rooftop. “Look look look. Somebody’s up to no good over here.” 

There are seven people jeering and jostling at each other in the street below, one more spraying graffiti on somebody’s store front. Tenth Street Reds, by the glints of color on their hats and scarves, though they’re a pretty motley lot. 

“Can we go get ‘em?” Mikey whispers, vibrating in place. April slips into place at Donnie’s other side, her shoulder and hip briefly pressing against his, distracting him for a moment. 

Below, whatever pissing match the gang members have going on resolves itself, and they spread out in pairs toward the nearby shops. Donnie tenses; something is obviously about to happen. “Don’t do it,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else. 

Glass shatters, tinkling in the quiet night. Mikey barely waits for Donnie’s nod before springing over the rooftop. 

By the time Donnie lands on the ground, Mikey’s already laid out the pair nearest the broken window and is taunting the others. Donnie goes after the biggest of the remaining men, who seems to be trying to coordinate the others. Two swift strikes and he’s down as well, curled on the ground and moaning, no longer in a position to call any shots. Donnie doesn’t see April, who followed him down from the roof, but he’s aware of her, behind and to his right. The fight doesn’t take long. These people are uncoordinated and no match for the three of them. 

One of the gang members, though, ignores them to break the window of a shop a little ahead, scoop an armful of merchandise out of the display into a sack, and take off down the street. “I’m on it!” April calls, and sets out in pursuit, a fleet streak of black through the dim light and grey slush of the street. 

Donnie turns back to find that two of the Reds have run off, and the rest are down. Time to disappear. He only has to glance once at Mikey, and they’re both launching themselves up the fire escapes. Donnie hears the wail of approaching police sirens. One of the shops must have set off an alarm. He sets off in the direction April was running—fortunately, she’s moving away from the sirens. 

# 

The little thief in front of her is obnoxiously fast, even with his sack of loot. April narrows her eyes and keeps after him as he darts around a corner and down an alley. She skids after him. She is not going to let this one get away. She’s running full tilt, and tries to steer down the center of the alley, away from obstacles that might lurk in the darkness at the sides of the alley. Her feet splash in the slush, no longer silent, but it can’t be helped. She counts the paces in her mind, stretching herself to gain ground. 

The dark fleeing figure ahead of her makes another turn, under the flapping tarp covering a building under renovation. April sets her teeth and keeps running. She’s almost closed the gap when her foot slides out from under her. She tries to catch herself, but her heel just keeps sliding, and the next thing she knows she’s landed on her side in a pile of slushy mud. 

Or maybe it’s muddy slush. She’s not sure which. Either way, it’s cold and wet. 

April lies still for a second, assessing. Her hip and shoulder hurt where she landed, and there’s a good chance she pulled something in her inner thigh. Nothing too serious, though, and her muscles file only minor protests as she pulls herself to her feet. Thank goodness for decent conditioning. She’s filthy, though; her winter gear is coated in slush and mud and grit, and some of it has worked its way between her layers, running cold trickles down her neck and hip. She’s got mud on her face, too, and her hood came askew when she fell, so there’s also mud in her hair. April sighs and tries to wipe it away. She’s pretty sure she’s only smearing it around. 

“April!” Donnie drops down out of nowhere next to her. He’s looking at her with huge, anxious eyes, and reaches toward her before checking himself. “Are you all right?” 

“I’m fine,” she sighs, trying to flick slush and grit off her sleeves. “Just took a tumble. It’s muddy since the snow started melting.” 

“I can see that,” Donnie says, looking at the ground with distaste. April notes he’s careful with the placement of his own feet, bare except for wrappings (there are no shoes in existence that fit the turtles’ broad, three-toed feet decently, and Donnie’s attempts to make some with the omni-fabricator in his lab were deemed not combat worthy). 

“The thief got away,” April adds in annoyance. 

“Mikey went after him,” Donnie replies, but a moment later there’s a soft thump from the fire escape above. 

“Hey, dudes, no luck on the runaway—ohhh, April, you’re a _mess_!” 

“Thanks,” she says ruefully, rubbing her sore hip. 

“What happened?” Mikey does a flip, dangles off the fire escape by one hand for a moment, and drops with only a small splash into the alley with them. 

“I slipped,” she sighs. “I’m fine. Really,” she adds, toward Donnie’s lingering concern. He’s practically hovering, almost but not quite reaching toward her. If they were alone, April has no doubt that he’d be patting her down for injuries. The thought makes her feel a little warmer. 

He nods, and Mikey says, “Well, anyway, I buzzed Leo already, so they’re meeting us over here.” 

April makes a face, already imagining how Raph and Casey are going to smirk when they see her. “Look, can I skip the debrief and head home? I really just want to take a shower, and my place is closer than yours.” 

“I don’t see why not,” Donnie says, and Mikey screws up his face into a sympathetic look and pats her on the back. 

“Okay, I’ll check in with you guys tomorrow, then,” April says. Icy wet trickles are working their way down her back and legs. 

She turns to go, when Donnie says, “Hey, April, did you want me to look over that data, like you asked?” 

His tone is perfectly calm, and she has no idea what he’s talking about. From his thoughts, she can’t get much more than a sense of anticipation, underlaid with something sharper; he simply watches her with intent brown eyes, drawing himself up a little tighter than usual, maybe, but with none of his usual fidgets. But if Donnie’s trying to arrange more time alone with her— _tonight_ —he must have a reason, and the mere thought floods her face with warmth. April’s glad she’s wearing a hood and scarf that covers her telltale cheeks. “Oh, yeah,” she says, trying to keep her own voice as calm and normal. “Sure.” 

Mikey looks from one of them to the other. April’s not sure he’s buying it. “Aww,” he says. “You’re both gonna take off?” 

“To talk science, Mikey,” says Donnie, in a patient and just slightly condescending tone that’s perfectly typical. “Leo and Raph and Casey will be here in just a few minutes.” 

“Yeah, I know,” Mikey says, and lets out a melodramatic sigh. “Fiiine, go on—no, wait D, it’s getting late, Leo’s gonna want to know if you’re coming back tonight.” 

“It is getting late,” April puts in. “I’ve got a couch, though.” Totally and completely true. 

“Yeah,” Donnie says, with a note of regret that might be overdoing it just a bit. “If it gets too late, I’ll catch some sleep at April’s and we’ll come back in time for training, promise.” 

“Okay,” Mikey says, cheerfully enough. “G’wan, go do science.” 

It’s enough like something Shepard said to her once that April pauses in the act of turning to go. “Will do,” she says softly, starting up the fire escape. 

They move in silence across three rooftops before April stops and turns to Donnie to ask what he’s up to, and before she can get the words out, he’s wrapped an arm around her and caught her in a kiss. His skin is shockingly cold, but the kiss lights her up all the same. When she can break away for a moment’s breath, she says, “What—” even while she holds onto his shoulders. 

“Sorry,” Donnie murmurs. 

“No, don’t be,” April says. “Just... I’m filthy.” 

“You’re lovely,” he counters. “I’ve been watching you move all night.” 

She shivers, and holds on tighter as his arms wrap around her. “I’ve been watching you, too,” she whispers back, thinking it over. Even in his oversized coat, Donnie’s graceful, moving decisively in and out of the shadows more swiftly than someone of his height and size should be able to. Cold and slush and all, her heart beats faster. “I never did tell you about how distracting you are, did I?” 

His body tenses, his arms drawing her in. When he chuckles, she can feel his breath on her cheek. “We’d better not get too distracted, I guess.” 

“Right.” They disentangle from each other reluctantly. April finds herself holding onto his coat as long as possible, her fingers trailing down his sleeve and grasping the cuff briefly before they part entirely. There’s a charge lingering in the air now, even though they’re separate; an invisible spark chaining them together through the damp, chilly night that makes her chest tighten when she catches his eye. She smiles even though it’s muffled by her scarf, a spark of warmth uncurling inside her. “Shall we?” 

They go quietly. April’s hyper-conscious of every breath and every stride, his as well as hers. They separate without a word so she can slide down to street level and enter her building like a normal person, and she doesn’t feel like waiting for the elevator, so instead she bolts up the stairs, unlocks the door as fast as she can, and throws herself toward the window, shucking off her hood and scarf and jacket as she goes. 

Donnie’s waiting just outside with an odd kind of politeness. He’ll come in when he knows she’s there, but not if he thinks the apartment’s empty. April opens the window, saying, “In, in, get out of the cold.” 

“It’s not that cold,” Donnie objects. 

“Cold enough,” April says, kissing his cheek and yanking at the zipper on his coat. Now that she’s inside, it doesn’t take long for the remaining snow on her to melt, leaving her soaked and shivering. “Let’s get out of these wet things.” 

He snorts but complies, dropping his coat on the floor and bending over to take the sodden wrappings off his feet. April steps back and manages to undress in record time, boots, pants, top. When she finishes pulling her shirt off over her head, Donnie’s staring at her. April glances down at herself and for a brief, self-conscious moment, wishes she had worn some prettier underthings today. Not that she _has_ much in the way of pretty underthings, but she can do better than a basic cream-colored sports bra and gray panties that don’t match. The embarrassed urge to apologize doesn’t make it out of her mouth, though, because Donnie’s staring at her with wide eyes and a flush creeping across his cheeks. He ducks his head and says, “You, um—” 

“Like what you see?” April asks with a smirk. She wants to take the words back almost immediately. They feel cheesy and smug, much more glib than she wanted. She’s not looking to sound like she’s in a bad vid, she’d rather have something... real, something that’s just them. 

Donnie doesn’t seem to notice her chagrin. He only blushes harder and blurts, “You’re so beautiful,” so April takes a breath, letting her tension ease. “Can I?” he adds, and she nods mutely as he reaches for her. 

She shivers as his cold hands trace a path down her sides, skin on skin. His grip engulfs her ribcage, but his touch is gentle and precise, thumbs stroking her breasts through the fabric of her bra. She takes another deep breath to steady herself and calm her racing heart. “Your hands are like ice,” she murmurs. 

“Sorry—”

“Don’t stop,” she says quickly, before he can say anything else or move away. 

He resumes his slow exploration, every touch sending tingles over her skin. April reaches out in turn. She avoids the ticklish spot, but she wants to run her hands over the scuffs and scratches in his shell, listening to how his breath changes. This. This is what she wanted. _This_ is theirs, just him and her, finding their way together. She slides her hands down and strokes the softer skin just below the base of his shell, right at the top of his thighs, and Donnie shudders. His own hands still at her hips, his thumbs plucking under the elastic waist of her underwear. April swallows, keenly conscious of the growing heat between her legs, of the air on her skin, of the heavy weight of his hands against her. Of the soft roil of Donnie’s emotions in her awareness. On impulse, she looks up to meet his dark, serious eyes, and says, “I really do want a shower. But... you could join me?” 

April’s bathroom is a tight fit for the two of them. 

That’s the first thing they both realize once Donnie’s joined her in the bathroom. April went in first, shucking off her underwear and untying her hair as she went. She turned on the hot water and waited, her skin growing hot with anticipation, chewing on her lower lip. Donnie followed a few moment later, only to stand hesitant in the doorway, bare of gear and mask. 

April’s seen Donnie shed the knee and elbow pads during late nights in the lab, or to tend to an injury, and she’s seen him stagger out of his room still slinging on his belt. She’s only seen his mask off rarely, usually when he’s injured or asleep. With everything gone now, he looks somehow taller, eyes darker. Or maybe it’s just the bad light and cramped confines of her bathroom. 

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Donnie asks, looking dubious. 

April shrugs. “Won’t know unless we try.” She steps back, letting the hot water spray over her head and shoulders, and throws her head back with a sigh. 

Donnie doesn’t make her wait long. Her eyes are still closed when she feels him draw close and touch her, stroking along her wet skin from shoulder to hip, as he did before. She opens her eyes and smiles at him, pulling him down to kiss her, her pulse racing. In the water, everything feels new. Their chilled skin warms and softens. The surface of Donnie’s shell turns slick; her fingertips glide across it with almost no resistance. When April slides her tongue across his mouth, she tastes clean water along with skin. He cradles her breast in one hand and slides the other hand up and down her back, tracing the length of her spine, and April moans, heating up from the inside as well as the outside. Donnie freezes when she does, and April takes advantage, pushing herself against him. “That means _don’t stop_ ,” she says, her lips close to his ear slit. 

He sputters out a laugh. “I know that, but you— oh, _April_ —” 

She smiles in satisfaction, stroking that spot at the top of his thigh she’d found earlier, stroking inward toward his inner thigh. His shell thunks against the wall of her shower, startling them both into giggles. “That didn’t hurt, right? April asks, walking her fingers in between his legs. 

“No, I’m fine,” Donnie says, a little breathless. April wants more than that, more than _fine_ ; she can sense his delight and pleasure, almost awestruck, surging through his mind. She wants more of that, she can _make_ more of that. She draws a gasp out of him as she explores between his legs, brushing over a widening slit and then finding, further back, something muscular that twitches under her hand. 

“Tail,” she murmurs, half to herself, remembering those damned anatomical charts and descriptions. 

“Yeah, it’s... it’s a little sensitive, April.” Donnie’s hands tighten on her hips. 

“Isn’t that the idea?” She licks the side of his neck, which gets a ragged, rough sound out of him. 

“Yes, but it’s, um... it’s not quite working for me now.” He says the words fast, almost apologetically. 

“Oh.” April’s a little disappointed, to tell the truth, but she tries not to show it. There are bound to be some missteps as they figure things out, so she needs not make a big deal out of them. Somehow she’d assumed his tail would be an erogenous zone. “I’ll be sure to note that in my results,” she says solemnly, moving her hand away. 

Donnie laughs. “Not complaining about the results—oh. That’s—” 

“Better?” April smiles. She’s found her way back toward that slit, which has a tangible swelling now. 

“Yes,” he breathes, so she keeps at it. Donnie shifts, one thigh nudging between her legs, and... oh. Yes. That’s good, too. She can grind against that solid, muscular thigh with increasing enthusiasm, while Donnie supports her back with one hand and toys with her breast with the other and fastens his mouth to the side of her neck—commendable multitasking, that—and she keeps rubbing at that swelling opening, drawing a delightful rumbling noise out of his chest. They must be getting water all over the floor, she notes hazily, but she can’t find it in herself to care. She’s much more focused on her own growing pleasure, and the noises Donnie’s making, and the rush of the water and the way their wet skin slides together. 

When his erection emerges, it’s sudden, and April can’t help it: she draws back far enough that she can look. She bites her lip, shivering in some anticipation; the shape is human-familiar enough, but he’s bigger than her previous partners, so... “Wow,” she finds herself saying. “Can I...” 

“You first,” Donnie says, and puts his hand between her thighs. 

April’s only real thought over the next moments is that he has no right to be as good as he is, he ought to be as much of a novice as she is, but as his finger works against her, slow and strong and thorough, conscious thought goes out the window. Instead she moans unashamedly and rocks herself against his hand and his thigh while Donnie watches her, all serious, keen focus, until she’s a gasping, writhing mess. 

When she comes down, blinking and trying to catch her breath, she’s the one braced against the tiled wall, in an iron-solid grip that won’t let her slip, and Donnie’s looking at her all pleased and proud of himself, and the water’s starting to get cold. 

She shuts the water off and reaches for him while he’s still looking smug. He deserves to; whatever research he did was obviously top-notch. But April won’t do less. She wraps her hand around his erection, still hard against her thigh, and he gasps, thoughts scattering as his arousal surges to center place in his mind. April watches his reactions: how his body tenses and his hands tremble against her skin, how his voice catches and rumbles in his throat, how desire grows urgent in his head, and she shifts her grip and speed accordingly. It doesn’t take long to bring him toward a climax, and he comes quickly with her hand around him, making no more noise than a sigh. 

She watches his eyes flutter shut and every twitch of his expression. The hot urgency of his feelings a moment earlier subsides into a warm, hazy pool of pleasure. There’s still a tiny current of bewilderment in there, but there’s so much satisfaction and happiness that it’s like lounging in a warm bath, and April wants to remember what this feels like forever. She stretches up to kiss him again, languidly, with no rush. 

Eventually she shivers, as her wet skin cools. They part with lingering touches, but no words, and towel off quietly. April throws her spare towels on the floor to mop up the scattered water and retreats to her bedroom, with its flannel sheets and heavy comforter, where Donnie’s already buried himself in the bed. 

She curls up against him, face to face, tucking her head under his chin. She’s still riding the wave of endorphins, but there’s also a part of her wondering if they’ve moved a little too fast. 

“That was... intense,” Donnie says softly, idly stroking her back. 

“Yeah,” April says, and adds hastily, “We can take things slow from here, no pressure.” 

Donnie laughs, a warm, low noise. “Weren’t you the one who said there’s no way to get this wrong?” 

She settles and smiles, running her fingers up and down his arm. “Yeah, I was.” 

“Leo’s going to lecture me about leaving Mikey alone,” he says. “Not that I’m complaining,” he adds quickly. “Totally worth it.” 

“Good, since that was your idea,” she says, smiling. “Are you going to tell him why?” 

Donnie goes very still for a long moment, and then says, “Not yet. I want to think about it.” 

April makes a wry face that Donnie can’t see. He’s probably overthinking this, to be honest, but she doesn’t need to say that. If he wants to turn himself inside out trying to figure out the perfect way to inform his brothers of his new relationship status, that’s up to him. The longer he waits, the more likely it is that someone or something will force his hand. 

As it turns out, their secret doesn’t last another week.


	4. Chapter 4

_January 31_

It’s been nearly three weeks since the galaxy lost Shepard. Ten days since the funeral. 

Leo’s been keeping track. In that time, Mikey’s made three batches of muffins, four batches of cookies, and two cakes. He hasn’t cried in four or five days, so that’s all right. He’s going to be fine. Raph was a surly, avoidant pain in the ass until the wake. He’s still staying over at Casey’s every other night or so, but that’s pretty normal, too. He’s not avoiding everyone when he’s home any more. He blew up at Mikey yesterday, and it was a perfectly normal fight, some yelling and shoving and chasing and both of them cooled off within ten minutes, so he seems to be more or less okay, too. Donnie’s been burying himself in those files Shepard handed them a month ago. He sticks his head out every now and then, either to say that everything is inconclusive, or to say something alarming about the destructive capacity of the Reapers. (“Did you know there’s a massive rift on the planet Klendagon that was caused by a mass accelerator weapon thirty-seven million years ago?”) Plus, in the last ten days, Donnie’s been staying at April’s just about every other night, too. That’s unusual, just enough out of the ordinary to keep Leo slightly on edge. 

Well, no. If he’s going to be honest with himself, it’s still Shepard’s loss that has him on edge. One death, and it’s unsettled Leo. It doesn’t matter that Shepard hadn’t been with them for years; her death was so sudden, so unnecessary, that it seems to color everything. It’s a relief that their patrols, resumed in the last week, have been entirely routine. Better not to have new crises erupting while they’re still coping and recovering. For once they’re getting some time to deal with their own thoughts and feelings. 

As Leo’s meditated on it, the feeling that’s lingered with him most is the loss of potential. He hates the thought of Shepard’s energy and vitality cut short, of the world deprived of her leadership and skill and guile, as much as he hates being deprived of her friendship. What Shepard told them on her last visit home, what April told them about the loss of the _Normandy_ , doesn’t help. He can’t shake the feeling that something is bearing down on them, something vast and hostile, that the galaxy has grown colder and more dangerous. And Donnie’s periodic news round-ups confirm what Leo’s own glances at current headlines show: the galaxy’s powers are content to let Shepard’s reports of Reapers die, buried beneath memorials, politics as usual, and celebrity gossip. If there are measures being taken at the upper echelons of government, they’re not leaking out into the public awareness. It would hardly be the first time this had happened. 

There is nothing Leo can do about that. He can’t force people in power to do what they should. There’s precious little he can do, even, to prepare for the possibility of alien attack, although they’ll do their damnedest to _be_ prepared, to not waste Shepard’s warning. But there’s very little about the state of the galaxy he can control. 

So he focuses on his family. 

If Raph knew that Leo was marking where all his brothers were, and keeping a mental check-in every few hours of who seemed short-tempered or unhappy, he’d call Leo overprotective and nosy, and he’d do it at top volume. That’s exactly why Leo is being discreet about it. And honestly, he’s not that worried about Raph or Mikey any more. They’re both acting more or less as he’d expect. He’s a little worried about Donnie. This thing where he spends most of his time at April’s makes Leo wonder. Does April really need Donnie’s help with work that often? Is she taking Shepard’s death harder than it seems? Or is Donnie taking it harder, and unloading on April what he won’t tell his brothers? Donnie has a habit of sitting on his feelings until they burst out in unpredictable ways. 

Leo hasn’t figured out how to broach the subject yet, so he’s holding his peace and keeping an eye on his brothers, all of them. He’s out in the living room, pretending to read while Mikey and Raph play a racing game, instead of holed up in his room actually reading. From this seat, he also has a clear view of the entrance to Donnie’s lab, and can see Donnie slouched in front of his computer. Leo glances up as Raph snarls and Mikey laughs, watching their vehicles careen down the screen, and returns his gaze to his book. “I’ll take the winner,” he says. 

“The hell you will,” Raph says, sounding like his usual self, not unduly frustrated even though he’s behind. “Me and Mikey are gonna have a rematch, you little—” 

His words trail off into a growl as Mikey runs Raph’s car off the road, hooting with laughter. Out of the corner of his eye, Leo notices Donnie getting up from his chair and heading for his coat. 

“Fucking hell, Mikey, what did you do that for!” Raph snaps, dropping the controller. His side of the screen says DEFEATED, and the game plays a tinny dirge. 

Mikey rolls back onto his shell, still laughing. “For the look on your face, bro! Dude, that was epic!” 

“That was _cheap_ , is what that was,” Raph grouses. “Hey, where are you going?” 

The question is directed at Donnie, who stops in his tracks. Leo does looks up from his book, interested in the response. Raph is looking, too, arms folded across his plastron. “I’m headed over to April’s,” Donnie says after a moment. 

He sounds calm and casual enough, but something about the tone raises Leo’s senses to alert. “Isn’t it a little late?” he asks, glancing at the time. 

“April wanted me to look at something for her,” Donnie says. “I can stay over if it gets too late.” 

It’s a conveniently vague excuse. It’s also a familiar-sounding excuse. Donnie’s said something similar the last... Leo does a rapid mental count... four times he went over to April’s, including that time Donnie and April both left patrol. “Does April have some kind of big work project going on?” he asks. 

“It’s more a bunch of different things that she could use some insights on,” Donnie says, shifting weight from one foot to the other. 

“You’re been over there all the time lately,” Raph says, jaw jutting out. “Can’t she do her own work?” 

“Not more often than you’ve been at Casey’s,” Mikey puts in, sitting up. 

Donnie sighs, looking irritated. “Of course April can do her own work. She just appreciates being able to consult with me.” _  
_

_Unlike some people_ , his tone seems to say. Leo can see Raph bristle. Before Raph can say anything scathing, Leo puts in, “We miss you around here, though. Seems like the four of us haven’t been hanging out much lately.” 

Donnie blinks. “I’ve been here all day.” 

“In the lab,” Raph says, quick to jump on this theme. “Seems like you’re in there or at April’s if we’re not training or patrolling. 

“You’ve been really busy,” Mikey points out. “I mean, not that you shouldn’t go hang out with April, because you totally should, but um, you haven’t... been around that much, so...” He trails off, and Leo gives him a look, puzzled. 

Donnie’s mouth tightens, and then he sighs, shoulders slumping. “You know, you’re probably right.” 

“Definitely right,” Raph grumbles. 

Donnie ignores the interruption. “Sorry, guys. I’ve been caught up in analyzing these files, I guess.” 

“So take a load off and stay home tonight,” Raph says. “It’s nice to have all of us at home, right, Mikey?” 

“Yeah!” Mikey says, and then adds hastily, “But if Donnie’s already got plans with April, that’s cool, we could hang out tomorrow?” 

“Tomorrow, sure,” Donnie says. 

“Or reschedule. April won’t mind, right?” Raph says. 

Leo glances from Raph to Mikey, trying to figure out what’s gotten into them tonight. Raph is staring at Donnie with all his attention, while Mikey’s biting his lip, round-eyed and worried. Raph’s probably noticed the same things Leo did, he realizes, and this is his ham-handed way of calling Donnie on it. Leo resists the urge to sigh, wishing Raph had talked to him first. 

“Well, I could...” Donnie says, but his tone is reluctant. Leo sets the book down on the arm of the chair, watching intently. Donnie’s hesitating. His eyes move just the slightest bit toward the exit, and then back toward them, and his weight is off-center. A lifetime of training together tells Leo that Donnie’s trying to make up his mind about something. (Plus, Donnie would be tragically easy to knock off his feet right right now.) 

Donnie’s eyes shift back toward them, he blinks once, and his posture straightens. He’s made a decision. Leo feels a brief burst of relief. Whatever’s going on with him, he’s ready to say something. “There’s a reason for that,” he says deliberately, as if he’s choosing his words with care. “I’d like to just say this once, though, so if one of you could get Sensei—” 

“Yes?” says Splinter from the doorway to the dojo, before Mikey’s done more than start to get up. He has both hands clasped over his walking stick, and cocks an ear at them. He’s always seemed to have a sixth sense for when they want him there—or, on a few memorable occasions when they were younger, when they _didn’t_ want him present. 

“Oh,” says Donnie, looking nervous again. “There you are, Sensei.” 

“Here I am,” Sensei answers pleasantly. “Is there something you wish to tell us, Donatello?” 

“There is, in fact,” Donnie says. At his sides, his fingers twitch. 

“Well?” Raph demands. “Spit it out, already.” 

Donnie swallows, eyes darting around the room, and then takes a deep breath. “April and I are together.” 

Leo takes a moment to absorb that information. To judge from the short silence, everyone else is doing the same. Donnie shifts his weight and adds, “I mean, the dating kind of together.” 

“Really, bro? That’s awesome!” Mikey jumps up from his place on the floor and bounds over. “High three!” 

“Um... thanks.” Donnie slaps Mikey’s palm obligingly and then staggers under the weight of Mikey’s hug. His eyes drift anxiously to the rest of them. 

“I am glad you and April have come to an understanding,” Sensei says. “And pleased you have chosen to inform the rest of the family in a timely fashion.” He casts a sharp eye at Raph as he says it, but Leo flinches. 

Leo doesn’t know quite what to think about this. It gives him a weird mental lurch like the earth beneath his feet has moved. He can hear the information, and yet it sounds like something out of a story. He should be happy, right? He should be happy for his brother, because Donnie’s wanted this since he was fifteen, and even if he said he’d resigned himself to being no more than April’s friend, Leo was sure the old feelings had never died. So he should be happy, and instead he finds himself... mostly something else. Worried, he thinks. Out of the blue like this... if they break up, if this thing doesn’t last, it’s going to really, really suck. Even if they don’t, this could be a huge distraction for all of them. 

“I knew it,” Mikey says gleefully, still hugging Donnie. 

“Wait, what?” Donnie asks. 

“You knew about this already?” Raph says. 

Mikey finally lets go of Donnie and grins round at all of them. “Well, I didn’t _know_ know, I just sort of guessed, because c’mon!” 

Well, that tells them precisely nothing. Leo blinks at Mikey’s smiling face and then trades glances with Raph, who’s still scowling. 

“I’m guessing you might have some questions?” Donnie says warily, glancing first at Leo, and then at Raph, who shrugs. 

Leo’s trying to formulate a question—or anything at all to say that doesn’t give away his misgivings before he’s thought things through—when Mikey says, “Yes! Is April going to move in? Or no! Wait!” His eyes widen. “Are you gonna move _out_?” 

That idea is even _more_ unnerving. But Donnie laughs. “I don’t think so. April might come stay down here sometimes, and I might stay over at her place from time to time—” 

“You’ve been doing that already,” Leo points out. 

Donnie looks sharply in his direction. “True,” he says. “But no, I can’t see moving to April’s place full-time. I mean, it has windows, it’s not exactly secure, and there’s no lab space, and besides, I’d miss you guys.” He smiles at Mikey, who promptly flings himself into another hug. At least Donnie’s braced for it, this time. 

“Aw, we’d miss you too, D!” 

Leo clears his throat. “So you and April have been, um, seeing each other since...?” 

“Just since she got back from the Citadel,” Donnie says, once he’s freed himself from Mikey’s clingy grip again. “We’d sort of talked about things a bit before that, but that was all.” 

Leo nods slowly, still trying to think of the right thing to say. “Okay,” he says. He’d known this had to be new. It’s so very new, though. 

“So are we done talking about this?” Raph asks. He’s turned back to the game, and holds up the controller. “I need a rematch over here.” 

“Oh, somebody wants to lose again!” Mikey calls, running back to his own spot and grabbing his own controller. 

“Okay, so... I’ll see you guys tomorrow?” Donnie asks. “I did tell April I’d be coming over tonight...” 

“Sure thing!” Mikey’s attention is already glued to the screen. 

“Yeah, sure. Whatever,” Raph says. 

“Leo?” Donnie asks. 

Sensei’s gone back to his rooms already, Leo realizes, and Raph and Mikey are engrossed in their game again. Raph seems to have decided to drop the subject, which might mean an outburst later, but at the moment, Leo’s on his own. Donnie’s looking at him hopefully, and warily. No matter what Leo thinks, he’d rather raise his concerns with Donnie privately, and this doesn’t feel like the time. “Sure,” he says. “Don’t forget morning practice.” 

“I won’t,” Donnie says. “I haven’t been.” 

That’s true. He’s been spending a lot of time at April’s, and he’s been distracted a time or two, Leo now recalls, but even when he’s spent the night, he hasn’t missed practice, and neither is she. Maybe this could work, after all. At least for a while. Leo tries to hold on to what’s left of his optimism. “Tell April hi from us,” he says. 

Donnie’s face lights up. “Will do! See you later,” he says, and goes, in long loping strides. 

Leo sighs. He can’t begrudge Donnie anything when he looks that joyful. He even feels guilty for his doubts. The guilt doesn’t stop the doubts themselves, though. If this comes crashing down, it’s going to be messy, and so soon after Shepard’s death... 

He’ll have to talk to Donnie later, that’s all, and maybe April, too. 

# 

“You’re late!” April exclaims as Donnie’s shutting the window behind him. 

“I’m sorry,” he says, mouth downturned, already looking sheepish. 

April shakes her head. “I didn’t mean it that way.” He turns apologetic so easily, and she needs to shake off her concern. Twenty minutes had been enough time for her imagination to start conjuruing up worst-case scenarios, but Donnie’s obviously unhurt. “You’re fine, and everything’s fine, right?” 

“Right, of course,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t realize that much time had gone by. I’ll call or something if it happens again.” 

“Okay,” April says. The important thing is that he’s all right and no calamity has occurred. “Come here and let’s get you warmed up, then,” she says with a smile, putting her book to the side and beckoning him over to join her on the loveseat. 

Donnie sheds his coat along the way and settles beside her to accept his hug, smiling and bright-eyed. “You look happy,” April notes. 

“I’m here with you, aren’t I?” he says, and then adds, “Besides... I told them.” 

“Really?” April squeezes his arms and leans back so she can look into his face. He’s still smiling, and a fuzzy kind of relief spills out of his thoughts. “You didn’t mention you were going to.” 

He shrugs. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. An occasion came up, and I decided to take advantage of it.” 

“And everything went okay?” April asks, smiling herself. 

Donnie’s brow creases briefly as a contemplative look crosses his face. “Yeah, it was fine. I think.” 

“You think?” 

His shoulders rise and fall again, and he laughs a little, nervously. “Yeah. It was fine. No one said anything bad. There wasn’t even... teasing, really. Mikey was really excited.” 

“Of course he was,” April says with a fond smile. 

“Actually, he sort of figured it out already. I guess we weren’t quite as subtle as we thought.” 

“Oops?” April says, leaning into him. She can’t bring herself to regret anything they might have let slip. It’s going to be nice, not having to stay ultra-discreet around the others. 

“And Sensei seemed totally fine with it, but I didn’t think he’d be upset. I did kind of get the sense that he wasn’t surprised, either.” He gives April a questioning look. 

“I didn’t say anything to him,” she says, and then thinks back to a few conversations she and Splinter had had the previous fall. “Or... well, not lately. I mean, it’s Sensei. If anyone were going to notice something, it would be him.” 

Donnie shakes his head. “Right,” he murmurs. “And of course he wouldn’t say anything.” 

“What about Leo and Raph?” 

Donnie hesitates, his expression clouding over. “That’s the thing. They didn’t really say much at all.” 

“Huh,” April says, catching the tendrils of Donnie’s worry. 

“Like I said, they didn’t say anything bad,” Donnie says. “Raph just seemed bored with the conversation.” 

“Well... it _is_ Raph,” April says. Raph’s hatred of talking about feelings is nigh legendary. She has no idea how he and Casey manage at all. 

“True,” Donnie says. “But Leo...” 

April waits. 

“Leo asked how long we’d been together,” Donnie says slowly. “But that was about it. And he said to say hi to you.” 

April quirks an eyebrow. “Well, that’s something.” 

Donnie chuckles. “Right. But that was all, and Leo’s not one to hide his opinion, so...” 

April sees where this is going. “He’s going to want to talk to you alone.” 

“Or you,” Donnie counters. “Or maybe both of us.” 

“Hmm,” April thinks that one over for a moment and concludes: “Well, we can’t do anything about it now. He’ll tell us what he wants when he decides to tell us.” 

“Right,” Donnie says with a sigh. His face has fallen. April puts a hand on either side of his head. 

“You did it, and nobody freaked out,” she says. “So no more secrets.” 

“No more secrets,” he agrees, starting to smile again.

“Whatever they have to say, we can deal with it together.” No matter what the rest of the family may think, April knows how she feels, and what she wants. 

His smile grows. “I like the sound of that.” 

“And no more thinking about them for right now,” she says, and kisses him.


	5. Chapter 5

Leo ambushes Raph in the bathroom in the morning, hissing, “What was that about?” 

“What was what about?” Raph snaps. It is way too early in the morning for this crap. How is he supposed to know what Leo’s been fretting over for however long? Is he supposed to be a mind-reader, or something? 

“Last night.” Leo stares at him like he’s trying to nail Raph to the wall with his eyes. “With Donnie. You were pushing him to explain what he was up to, and then you just let it go.” 

Oh. That. 

Raph sighs and scrubs his hands over his face, turning on the faucet to buy himself time. He’d thought— well, it doesn’t matter what he’d thought, any more, but he sure hadn’t thought Donnie and April were actually a _thing_. 

Leo stands by with his arms crossed. “I mean, do you really expect me to believe you don’t have an opinion about this whole Donnie-and-April thing?” 

“What’s the point?” Raph mutters, aimlessly splashing water on his hands. 

“What do you mean, what’s the point?” Leo crowds in on his left. “If you’ve got something to say, I want to hear it.” 

“Dude,” Raph snaps, shoving an elbow into Leo’s chest. “Back off. Why’s this so important? I didn’t hear you giving Donnie some big lecture last night.” 

Leo’s eyes narrow. “I was taking some time to think, unlike—” 

“And it doesn’t matter,” Raph snarls, before Leo can accuse Raph of jumping in without thinking, _again_ , “because it’s not gonna...” He stops and growls, trying to find the words. This is why he hates talking about stuff like this. “They’re just fooling around, or whatever, it’s not really gonna be a thing.” 

Now Leo’s eyes go all wide and shocked again. “What? You think she’s... using him or something?” 

“Didn’t say that,” Raph grumbles and turns deliberately back to the sink to wash up. 

“And you didn’t think that was worth saying to _Donnie_?” 

Raph rolls his eyes. Now Leo’s got something in his head that Raph never meant to put there, like usual, and he’s in one of those moods where he’s not going to let go of whatever he’s fretting about. “What for? He’s had this whole April thing in his head for years. You think anything we can say is gonna make him drop it if he thinks he’s got a shot now?” 

“Still, that doesn’t excuse—” 

“What crawled up your shell and died anyway?” It is _way_ too early in the morning to deal with Leo going on a tear of righteous indignation. He hasn’t even pulled shit like this in a while, so what’s his problem? 

Leo’s mouth hardens into a prissy little line. “Excuse me for being concerned about my brothers,” he huffs. 

Raph stares at him and sighs. When is Leo going to get it through his head that they’re all big turtles and can take care of themselves? Does he really not see that pushing Donnie on this is going to lead to screaming? And... whatever, look, Leo still acts like Raph’s just a dumbass, but he’s wrong; Raph has learned to pick his battles, and he’s going to pick one that does not involve Donnie spilling all the feelings about April he’s had since they were fifteen, okay? 

“Morning, bros!” Mikey sings out, flinging open the bathroom door. “Whoa, dudes, what’s wrong?” 

“Nothing,” Raph says. 

“We were just talking about Donnie’s situation with April,” Leo says. 

“I know! Isn’t it awesome?” Mikey cheerfully bounds over to the other sink, humming as he washes his hands and face. “It’s so cool, and April’s gonna be just like our sister now!” 

Raph snorts at that, and Leo says, “April’s already practically part of the family, Mikey.” 

“But it’s different now, right?” Mikey says, turning toward them. His eyes move slowly from one to the other, and then he frowns. “Dudes. What, are you not... are you not happy about this?” 

“It’s just complicated,” Leo says. 

“Whatever,” Raph says. “Like I was telling Leo, it’s not gonna last, so there’s no reason to get all worked up about it.” He turns the faucet off and starts to go, giving Leo a nudge with his shoulder for good measure. 

“Not gonna _last_?” Mikey says. “What is the _matter_ with you? Do you like, hate joy?” 

Raph groans. “Yes, Mikey. I hate joy and all forms of happiness. Can we just go do training now?” 

“No, because you guys need to stop being jerks before Donnie and April show up.” Mikey plants his hands on his hips. 

“I just have some concerns,” Leo says. 

Mikey scowls at him, and Leo sighs and keeps talking. “There’s been a lot of change, very quickly, and I don’t know if they should jump into anything hastily.” Leo’s doing that thing where he tries to sound super-reasonable and calm while he tells you what a dumbass you’re being. It’s annoying enough that Raph almost finds himself changing his own mind. 

Mikey heaves an exaggerated sigh and points at both of them. “Neither one of you understands romance.” 

“What do _you_ know about it?” Raph snaps. 

“I know plenty.” Mikey’s eyes narrow. “Seriously, guys, c’mon, all you have to do is _look_ at them. They’re so _happy_.” 

“Mikey,” Leo says, still in that patient, smug tone, “we all know how Donnie feels about April, but—” 

“It’s not just him!” Mikey says. “It’s April, too. They’re all, like, squishy love feelings, and it’s awesome, and you gotta give them a chance.” 

Leo actually looks chagrined at that, eyes turning down toward the floor. 

“And you—” Mikey pokes Raph in the arm and Raph swats his hand away, growling. “—you’ve got Casey, and who woulda thought that would last, huh?” Raph glares at him, offended, but Mikey smiles back brightly. “But like, when you guys started dating, Leo didn’t even notice!” 

“Thanks for reminding me,” Leo grumbles. 

Mikey keeps talking. “So it doesn’t need to be a big problem, it can just be cool. Soon Donnie and April will be totally normal and cool, too, you’ll see!” 

Mikey keeps staring at him, so Raph finally grumbles, “Maybe. Whatever, Mikey.” It’s not like he was going to say anything to Donnie, anyway. 

“Maybe you’re right,” Leo says. “I’ll talk to Donnie after practice, that’s all.” 

“Leo, c’mon, let it go—” Mikey starts, and Raph seizes his opportunity to escape. At least he’s not going to be the last one to the dojo this morning. 

# 

Splinter calls April aside after practice. 

She’s sweaty and longing for a shower, but she waits while the brothers leave the dojo (Donnie with one anxious backward glance). April’s not especially worried. She doesn’t sense any anger or displeasure from Splinter. On the other hand, he’s also, of everyone she knows, the best able to mask his true feelings. With Splinter, it’s always best to stay composed and polite, so she’s ready to kneel, listen, explain herself; whatever he wants from her. 

But he begins without preamble: “It seems I should welcome you to the family, but in truth you have been part of the family for many years already. So I shall simply say I am pleased for you.” 

The little bit of tension April felt drains away in an instant, and then a smile spreads across her face. “Does that mean Casey’s part of the family, too?” 

Splinter’s eyes crinkle in a smile. “In a manner of speaking.” 

April smiles wider. In spite of the fatigue dragging at her muscles, she feels lighter than she’s felt in ages. “Thank you, Sensei.” 

“In truth, you are all far too old to have any need of my approval.” His ears flatten slightly. 

“That doesn’t mean we don’t want it,” April replies sincerely. 

His posture relaxes, and she sees the hint of a smile again. “That is good to hear. I shall not keep you, April. I know you have to work.” 

She smiles back, still warm and glowing, bows, and makes her exit. 

She’s apparently not destined to make it to the bathroom yet, though, because Mikey’s waiting for her outside the door with an enormous smile. “Hey, April! Donnie told us all about it.” 

“I know,” she says, still grinning. Mikey holds out his arms, and she returns the hug immediately. 

“Well, I think it’s awesome, and I was wondering, are you gonna move down here?” 

April laughs. “I think I’ll keep my place.” The lair might be her second home, but she likes having a first one that’s... well, a little more private. Somewhere that’s quieter, and cleaner, and has an actual mailing address. She catches the thread of worry underneath Mikey’s cloud of sunshine, though, and adds, with a little rush of guilt, “I’ll probably be around more often, though, I know I haven’t been here that much in the last couple of weeks. And I know I’ve been monopolizing Donnie, too, sorry about that.” 

“Oh, that’s cool,” Mikey says, and that little discontent is already fading. “I get it. But now you don’t have to keep it a secret any more, so that’s better, right?” 

“Right, and I bet we’ll both be here more often.” 

“And Donnie said he was gonna hang out with us tonight, so we’re gonna have, like, an awesome bro bonding night!” 

April smiles, biting back a laugh. “That sounds great,” she says, a little relieved. There’s a tiny, greedy part of her that wants to grab as much time alone with Donnie as she can. The rest of her, more sensible, recognizes that they’ve had a lot of time to themselves lately, and Mikey’s right, the brothers should spend some time together. The last thing April wants to do is drive any wedges between them. She knew what she was committing to; Donnie’s part of a team, and that connection is always going to be vital. “I should talk to my dad, anyway.” 

“Awesome,” Mikey says brightly, and then his brow furrows slightly. “I just wanted you to know, I think it’s great, and I’ve totally got your backs, no matter what.” 

“No matter what?” April tilts her head. 

He waves his hands vaguely. “Well, you know, _some people_ just have to be jerks, or like weird and bossy and stuff.” 

April presses her lips together as she understands what he’s getting at, and turns her head suddenly, as she notices the frustration and concern bleeding out of the lab area. 

# 

Donnie’s fiddling with something on his worktable, but Leo can tell from the set of his shoulders that he’s not surprised Leo’s sought him out. Leo keeps his voice as neutral as possible. “Can we talk?” 

Donnie straightens. “I thought you probably had something to say.” 

“I have some concerns,” Leo says, and wonders if it’s stupid to bring this up at all. He could simply wait, after all. Wait, watch, listen, intervene if a problem develops. It might be the smarter move, the _wiser_ move, only—if a problem develops, it could already be too late. This thing with Donnie and April feels like a seismic shift, and Leo would rather address the issues now, before anyone gets hurt. Besides, it’s obvious that Donnie already knows that something’s up, and he hates when people keep things from him. 

“Okay.” Donnie stares at him, unblinking. “Tell me.” 

Leo sighs. Donnie’s already got his back up, so this is going to be an uphill conversation. “I’m concerned that this will affect group dynamics on a mission.” 

“I promise not to make out with April on a mission. Does that help?” 

Leo’s eye wants to twitch, badly. “I’m concerned about distraction, yes, but I’m also concerned that this is going to lead one or both of you to riskier behavior.” 

Donnie does blink, once. “This is not a new feeling for me, Leo. You know that. I’ve fought beside April for years—” 

“And sometimes done risky things to protect her,” Leo points out. 

“And you’ve done risky things to protect me,” Donnie counters. “Or Mikey. Or any of us. Let’s not even talk about Raph and Casey. We all put our lives on the line for each other over and over. It’s what we do. I admit I’ve made some bad calls. We’ve all made our share. We learn, we’re more experienced, and we have better judgment that we did at fifteen. I think we can handle it. Raph and Casey can.” 

Leo’s mouth tightens. Donnie’s obviously prepared his arguments, and they’re 100% reasonable. It’s heartening, in a way, that Donnie’s genuinely thought it through, that he’s not just letting his heart lead him. 

It doesn’t quite squelch his nagging worries, though, and he’s not ready to let this go. 

“What else?” Donnie asks briskly. 

“You think it’s that simple?” Leo says, irritated that Donnie seems to think that line of discussion is over. 

“Isn’t it?” Donnie crosses his arms. “This doesn’t have to be complicated, Leo. It doesn’t have to be a big change. If you think we’re making a mistake, you tell us, just like usual.” 

“It _is_ a big change,” Leo snaps. “I can’t believe you don’t think it is.” 

“It doesn’t have to change _everything_.” 

“And right now, of all times... are you really...” Leo cuts himself off, but not fast enough. Donnie’s mouth has tightened and his eyes narrowed into a set, stony look. 

“Am I really what, exactly?” 

Leo sighs. He’s done it now, so he might as well get himself in for it. “Are you sure this is a good idea?” 

Donnie stares at him for a long, cold minute, and then closes his eyes and shakes his head. “Let me guess. You think this is about Shepard dying.” 

Leo flinches, but tries to keep his voice even. “We’ve all been kind of keyed up. I get that.” 

“That’s not what this is about,” Donnie says firmly. “So, what, you think we’re confused by grief? That we’re plunging into something just to comfort each other? That we’re using each other for emotional support? Or maybe that April’s just using me for comfort, and so I’m grabbing the opportunity to live out an adolescent fantasy, is that it?” 

Leo somehow manages not to squirm. Not surprisingly, Donnie’s right on target, speaking out the worst of his fears. His face must give him away, though, because Donnie breaks into laughter. “You know what? April was right.” 

“Right about what?” 

“I said almost the same thing to her,” Donnie says. “Almost exactly the same thing, about how the timing was off, and maybe she was having a hard time and not thinking clearly. Do you want to know what she said to me about that?” 

“Sure,” Leo says warily. 

“She said it was condescending and insulting. I didn’t realize until now just how right she was.” He tilts his head forward, earnest. “Give us some credit, Leo. You really think we’d jump into a romance without thinking about it seriously?” 

Leo sighs. “Maybe. I don’t know. Look, I just... don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“You can’t control that,” Donnie says seriously. 

When it comes to a fight, Leo can, or tries to. He does everything he can to keep his brothers from harm. When it comes to this... Leo can’t jump in and take the blow. “I know,” he says with a sigh. 

“April’s our friend, and we can trust her,” Donnie says, perfectly calm. It’s only a veiled reference to that mess Leo had with Karai, back before she took over the Foot for herself, but Leo flinches anyway. Donnie goes on, “Look, we’re all grown-ups. I know people break up all the time. And if that’s what happens here, I guess we try to be friends, and that’s that. But April and I both want to try, and it’s been... great, so far. I really think this doesn’t have to make things weird for the rest of you, so... give us a chance?” 

“Right,” Leo says, slowly. “Of course.” He can hardly deny his brothers anything, and he won’t deny Donnie a chance at happiness. He hadn’t really thought anything like this would happen—once, he hadn’t thought any of them would find love this way. Then he found out about Raph and Casey, and he’d had to adjust that thinking, but he’d just sort of made a mental exception for them. Donnie and April is something else again, and that’s part of what’s been bothering him, he realizes; he’s going to have to adjust his thinking again. 

“Great,” Donnie says, apparently cheerful again. “Listen, are you okay?” 

“Am I...?” Leo stares at him in bafflement. “Of course I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be?” 

“You’ve seemed awfully tightly wound lately,” says Donnie carefully. “And you seemed... kind of upset about this. But you’re sure you’re all right?” 

Leo shakes his head. “I’m a little distracted by thoughts of the impending doom of the galaxy, that’s all.” 

Donnie chuckles. “Yeah, that’s understandable. And I mean, I do realize this is a change, so I was thinking... I’ll be here tonight, like we planned yesterday. But maybe we could do movie night with all of us tomorrow?” 

“I think that’s a good idea.” Leo’s relieved, actually; they could all do with some relaxation. 

Donnie beams. “We’re good, then?” 

“We’re good,” Leo confirms, with a smile of his own. 

April sticks her head into the lab. Her hair is still plastered to her forehead with sweat, and she’s frowning. “Everything okay in here?” she asks sharply. 

“Fine,” Leo and Donnie both say. 

Her gaze zeroes in on Leo. He meets it head-on and says, “Actually, I’ll give you two a moment,” and heads for the door. 

As he expected, April stays to talk to Donnie instead of following him. He can hear her ask Donnie if everything’s really fine, and Donnie giving her a good-humored response and reminding her not to be late to work. 

They could be okay, Leo realizes, and if his heart gives a little wrench of loneliness at the idea, no one needs to know. 

# 

“Hey, Dad,” April says brightly to the screen. It’s a good time for her to take care of her own family ties, since the turtles are having their bonding night (which sounds like it’s going to involve a short patrol, games, and probably a lot of roughhousing—April does not mind having a quiet evening to herself). 

In the study of the old house upstate, her father blinks back at her and smiles. “April! To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

“Do I need a reason to call my dad?” 

He chuckles and passes a hand over his bald head. The fringe of hair April remembers from her youth is completely gone now, and his beard has dimmed to a faded silver. Other than that, life away from the bustle of the city has agreed with him, helped calm his nerves. The twitch he’d had for years after their encounters with the Kraang is gone, and he looks healthy again, more filled out. “Of course you don’t need one, honey, but sometimes you have one anyway.” 

“Well, you’re right this time,” April admits. “But what’s new with you?” 

For a few minutes, they talk about all the banal, normal things: the weather, Kirby’s neighbors, his research project, April’s projects at work, and then: “So was there something you wanted to tell me, April?” 

April laces her fingers together and smiles. Her heartbeat quickens. “Yeah, Dad. I wanted you to know that I’m seeing someone.” 

“Oh, really?” Her dad brightens up. “It’s been a while, hasn’t it? What are they like? Anyone I know?” 

“Yeah.” April swallows down her nervousness. Her dad will be happy for her— she thinks. He likes the brothers, likes Donnie the best of them; they have the most in common, even if Donnie hadn’t been the one who gave Kirby O’Neil his life back. “It’s, um, it’s Donnie.” 

“Oh,” he says, blinking a couple of times. He looks startled, and April bites her lip, waiting for whatever he’s going to say next. “Oh! Well, that’s... that’s a surprise, isn’t it?” 

“Is it?” she says, her mouth dry. “Why?” 

He blinks again. “Well, it's great, but you’ve known each other for such a long time, and... ah, I apologize if this is prying, April...” His cheeks turn a little pink and he rubs the back of his neck. “I just thought you’d turned him down a long time ago.” 

“Oh,” she says, and it’s her turn to look surprised. “No, I... we never really had that conversation.” They should have, probably, back when they were seventeen or eighteen or twenty, but Donnie had never pushed, and April hadn’t wanted to bring it up herself. “And things changed, when I was overseas.” 

Dad nods. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder, huh?” 

“Something like that,” April says. Relief is starting to blossom in her chest, un-knotting her muscles. 

He nods again. “Are you happy?” He peers at her seriously across the miles. 

April smiles. She knows even without being able to see herself that it’s the kind of smile that’s soft and fond and giddy and that she absolutely, positively can’t stop. “Yes,” she says. “I’m really happy.” 

Her father smiles back. “Well, that’s what I want most for you. If you’re happy, I’m happy. And Donnie's a fine young man.” 

She starts to answer, but she’s interrupted by a knock on her door that erupts into a familiar rat-a-tat-tat a moment before the door opens. “Yo, Red!” 

April rolls her eyes and calls over her shoulder, “Locks are a thing, Casey.” 

“So are hacks,” he says strolling in with his usual grin, only to straighten up and school his face into polite presentability. “Oh, hey, Mr. O.” 

“Hi, Casey,” says Kirby, chuckling. “I’ll let you go, April. Have a good night!” 

“Bye, Dad,” she says, blowing a kiss at the screen, and turns to Casey with arms folded when the image winks out. “Well, Casey?” 

He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “So, rumor has it...” 

April groans, even though she’s known this was coming. 

“... that you and the D-man are swappin’ some bodily fluids.” 

April wrinkles her nose. “Ew. Seriously, Casey?” 

“Hey, I don’t control the rumor mill.” 

“You _are_ the rumor mill,” April points out. 

He puts one hand to his heart, theatrically. “I’m wounded, Red.” 

She reaches out with one foot and kicks him in the shin. 

“Hey!” 

“Now you’re actually wounded. Barely. So quit whining.” 

Casey grins. “Now you’re talkin’ my language.” 

April rolls her eyes and waves him off. “Whatever, Casey. Yes, I’m dating Donnie, yes, it’s going great, thanks for asking, and no, I’m not going to share any of the details with you.” 

“You sure about that?” Casey tilts his head and smirks down at her. “’Cause when I was in school we learned about the birds and the bees but not the reptiles, if you get my drift, and I’ve had a crash course since.” 

April wrinkles her nose. “Everyone gets your drift, Casey. You are the opposite of subtle.” 

His grin widens. “Well, you know what I mean, then.” He wiggles his eyebrows again. 

April groans and covers her eyes with both hands. “Oh my God, Casey, are you actually standing there offering to tell me about your sex life with Raph? What on earth makes you think I want to know?” 

“Hey, you got one of your own now.” She can hear Casey taking the couple of steps to her couch. “Figured you might want to know what makes the green machine tick.” 

April screws up her face at that line and drops her hands. Casey’s lounging on the couch, feet propped up on her battered coffee table, looking smug. “I think we’re doing fine on our own, thanks.” 

“You sure? You figured out about the—?” Casey makes a vague but suggestive gesture with his hands. April shudders. In fact, she’s not entirely sure what he’s getting at, but she really, really doesn’t want to ask for clarification. 

“Casey, stop, I mean, I think we’ve got it handled, I have diagrams.” 

“Handled.” Casey smirks, and April groans again, and then his eyes widen. “Now wait just a minute! Where’d you get _diagrams_ , Red?” 

Oh no. 

April frantically attempts to do damage control, but it’s wasted effort. Casey is already laughing hysterically and doesn’t hear a single thing she says. “Oh, man!” he says, between gales of laughter. “I can’t believe that dork gave you _diagrams_! Wait til I tell—” 

April vaults out of her chair and springs into Casey’s personal space, leaning down so they’re practically nose to nose. She hisses in her deadliest tones: “Breathe one word of this to anyone, and I _end you_.” 

Casey cackles wildly and peers up at her, still shaking silently. “Oh yeah?” 

“ _Slowly_ , Casey.” She flicks open her fan and taps him lightly on the chest with it. “Not one word to Raph. Not one word to Mikey. If you give Donnie any shit for that, my wrath will be _slow and painful_. This is between him and me.” Casey and Donnie give each other shit all the time, it’s just what they do, but she doesn’t want to see the look on Donnie’s face if Casey teases him with something Donnie had reason to think was private between himself and her. 

Casey looks at her for a long moment, and the next crooked smile is startlingly gentle. “That's how it is, huh?” 

“Yeah,” April sighs, and the fight goes out of her. The coffee table creaks slightly when she slumps back onto it. 

“Well, good,” Casey says. When she looks at him with a raised eyebrow, he squirms in place and says, “I mean, you know. You’re both my friends, so.” 

April smiles. “Thanks, Casey,” she says softly. Casey’s many things: a brat and a brawler and loud and vulgar, but once he considers you a friend, he’s got your back forever. 

“Been a long time coming, huh?” 

“I guess so.” April puts the fan aside and knits her fingers together, studying the creases in her palms. “I didn’t see it coming until a few months ago.” 

“Really?” 

She looks up. “You did?” 

He shrugs. “I just always kinda figured, ever since you and me broke up, but then it kept not happening. So, you know, it took you guys long enough.” He mock-scowls at her. 

April makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. She and Casey broke up around the time she started college, which is more than a decade now. “Yeah, I guess so.” 

“Raph said it wasn’t ever gonna happen. Shows what he knows.” 

“Did he?” April asks, surprised. Then her eyes narrow. “You guys talk about us?” 

“No,” Casey says, too quickly. “But things are good?” 

April gives him another second of glare and decides to let it go. “Yeah. Things are good.” She thinks about the last couple of weeks, about a friendship that’s sustained her for half her life and is transmuting, now—like she’s turned over a kaleidoscope, and all the pieces are the same, just as bright and colorful, but now they’re in a whole new pattern. “Really good,” she says, smiling. 

Casey snorts. “God, April, your face.” 

“What about it?” 

He shakes his head. “You just remember, you need tips? I’m your man.” 

“I think we’ve got it covered,” she says. 

He does the thing with his eyebrows again. “Or _un_ covered.” 

April groans again, but she can’t help laughing. “Just tell me one thing?” 

“You got it, Red,” Casey says. “Whatever you want to know.” 

She leans forward. “Is Raph ticklish?” 

Casey snickers. “ _Oh_ yeah. But don’t, uh. Don’t tell him I said so.”


	6. Chapter 6

Going down to the lair for movie night shouldn’t make April nervous. 

There’s really nothing more normal than this, after all. She’s probably done it hundreds of times. Hanging out with her closest friends, lounging on the worn, broken-in furniture while they stuff themselves with snacks and alternate between mocking whatever they’re watching and shushing each other. And it’s a perfect night for it: it’s snowing again, far too cold, wet, and slippery outside to risk running around on rooftops. April can’t count the number of winter afternoons and evenings they’ve spent like this. 

But tonight, well— tonight is the first night she’s hanging out with the guys since they found out about her and Donnie, so April’s not sure what to expect. Pranks. Razzing. Disapproval. Could be anything, could be nothing. She’ll just have to be ready for anything. 

_Please don’t let this be weird_ , she thinks, and takes a deep breath, and calls, “Hey, guys! I’m here!” just like normal. 

“Hey, April!” Mikey shouts back from the kitchen, loud with the rattle of something popping. “You want the popcorn with cheese?” 

“Yes, please,” she says. Mikey likes caramel corn, which is too sweet for April’s taste most of the time. The cheesy stuff, on the other hand, she can eat huge quantities of. 

“Cool, I’ll make buttered popcorn, too!” 

April smiles. This feels good. Ordinary, comfortable, just like any other night. The minds around her feel reassuringly normal: Mikey’s happy anticipation is the loudest thing she’s aware of, mixed with vague undercurrents of the others. She catches a sense of focused concentration—that’ll be Donnie, working on something, and April starts toward the lab to see what it is. 

“April, can I have a word with you?” 

She nearly jumps off her feet at Leo’s silent approach. Of course it would be Leo who manages to fly under her radar, and if he gives her a damned lecture on always being aware of her surroundings, she’s going to let him have it. He’s giving her that look, too, that slightly superior I’m-a-better-ninja-than-you look, and she can catch more amusement drifting from him than anything else. More than anything, that’s what makes her work to control her temper, and she manages to keep her tone nice enough when she says, “You don’t have anything to worry about, you know.” 

He chuckles, which is not what she expected. “Don’t I? Okay. What do you think I’m worried about?” 

April plants her hands on her hips. “Don’t play games with me, Leo. I’ve known you since you were fifteen. Besides, I know you talked to Donnie yesterday.” Donnie had been vague about their conversation. He’d insisted that things were okay, which was reassuring, but not knowing what they’d talked about still leaves April filled with a nebulous defensive urge. She’s talked a good game, and she’s told Donnie they can deal with whatever the family throws at them, but that doesn’t mean she _wants_ any of his brothers to give him crap for this. 

“Yes, we talked,” Leo confirms, and sighs, probably at the look on her face. “Look, I know I can be...” 

“Bossy?” April suggests. “Overbearing?” 

He wrinkles his snout at her. “... overprotective, and have you been hanging out with Raph?” 

April smiles at him in spite of herself, a little of her irritation fading away. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Casey come barreling in, glance in her direction, and then make a beeline for the kitchen. A moment later she can hear his and Mikey’s voices, loud and cheerful even though the words are indistinct. 

“I mean, you had to know I was going to ask this,” Leo says. “I need to know you’ll have your head on straight during missions.” 

He’s right. This isn’t unexpected, and it isn’t even unfair to ask, but April still has to take back the first, snappish thing it occurs to her to say. Instead she says: “You’re all my friends, Leo. I don’t think a romantic attachment is going to make me suddenly swoon or freak out or something. I don’t want any of us getting hurt.” 

He nods. She can feel his emotions, now, a wall of cloudy worries. “That’s another concern,” he says carefully. 

April doesn’t want to pussyfoot around any more. “This isn’t a fling. I came back to New York to see if this could work. I’ve been trying to figure out how to tell him how I feel for months.” Far too long, she thinks ruefully. “And if it doesn’t... if Donnie wants to end things at any point...” She hates the thought of that, so much; it makes her want to shout and throw things. She pushes the idea away to finish: “... I hope he’ll still be my best friend.” 

Leo blinks again, obviously surprised. “You’re serious,” he says. 

“I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life,” April says, and means it. Her studies, her research, her career, her training—she’s worked and fought for all of those things, but she could change careers if she had to. There’s only one Donnie. 

“I guess that’s what I needed to know,” Leo says, rubbing the back of his neck. His shoulders relax out of their hard line, but he looks somehow even more uncomfortable, like he doesn’t know what to do without his authority to keep his posture stiff. The crack in his guard gives April a glimpse of fatigue and a sort of gray, lonely unhappiness lurking underneath his worry. She hesitates, not sure what to say. That’s one of the curses of her powers: she can sense other people’s feelings, but that often doesn’t give her any clue what to _do_ about them. 

“It’s going to be okay,” she says anyway. It feels vague and empty, but at least it’s something. She reaches out to squeeze his arm. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither is he. It’s not that big a change. We’re going to be okay.” 

“If you say so,” Leo says, giving her a half smile. His usual calm is coming back to the fore, burying that thread of envy and loneliness, which makes April’s heart hurt a little. “No big deal, huh?” 

“That’s right,” April says firmly. “Come on, what are we watching tonight?” 

# 

Donnie’s just in the process of saving his work and shutting down the system when Casey comes barging into the lab and plants himself on the worktable. Donnie obstinately refuses to let himself be distracted. “Do you need something, Casey?” 

Casey smirks, reaches out to poke Donnie on the shoulder, and drawls, “So. You and April, huh?” 

Donnie rolls his chair back from the table and scowls. “If this is some kind of misguided and, frankly, patronizing effort at protectiveness—” 

Casey arches an eyebrow and intones, “Didn’t think I had to warn you, Donatello.” 

“Of course not,” Donnie says, relief unwinding a little inside him. He’d never hurt April; they both know that. 

“Nah, I just came to give you some pointers.” Casey’s grin broadens. 

The relief sinks like a stone. “Pointers,” says Donnie as neutrally as possible. This is not happening. 

“Well, yeah.” Casey leans forward, twitching his eyebrows. “Cause, y’know, your experience is all the pointy alien kind, so you should probably know a thing or two about human ladies, doncha think?” 

Donnie is reduced to making an inarticulate noise like a squawk, which has to be exactly what Casey is going for, because he says as if confiding a secret, “See, April is a lot squishier than turian ladies, so—” 

“She is not _squishy_ ,” Donnie bursts out, since the whole concept is unappealing, and besides: “And last I checked, you’ve got limited experience with ladies of any species yourself.” 

“Still got _some_ ,” Casey says, unfazed. “Let me tell you—” 

“No,” says Donnie urgently. He normally wouldn’t use extreme measures on a friend, but he’s calculating possible disabling strikes that might get Casey to stop talking. “No no no. It’s fine, Casey, really, we’re— we’re fine. Good, really. We, uh, I’ve got things figured out.” 

“You sure?” Casey says with another eyebrow wiggle. 

“Guys!” Mikey calls from the living room. “Come on!” 

Donnie’s not sure he’s ever been more grateful for an interruption in his life. He manages to dodge Casey’s attempts to sling an arm over his shoulders or elbow him in the side, and goes out to find his brothers already gathered, amid bowls of popcorn. Leo and Mikey appear to be arguing over the choice of movies, and Raph is planted in his favorite chair with his arms crossed, pretending to be above it all, and April... April is sitting in her usual place, which is next to Donnie’s usual place. She turns to look for him and gives him the most radiant smile, her eyes lighting up like a sunny winter sky, and all Donnie can do is smile back, helplessly and foolishly. He stops moving, even, so Casey cackles and jabs him with an elbow after all, and Mikey calls out, “Come on, lovebirds, let’s get the show started!” 

Raph rolls his eyes and Donnie’s face heats up, but April doesn’t look disturbed at all, and Leo smiles tolerantly, so Donnie growls wordlessly at Casey and slides into his place. Next to April. 

Later, Donnie will not be able to tell anyone what vids they watch that night. April’s a warm weight at his side. She leans into him and even rests her head on his shoulder sometimes. They share a bowl of popcorn, and twice their hands brush against each other as they reach into the bowl. After that, April just slides her fingers around his and eats with her other hand. He’s more conscious of her than he is of what’s on the screen: how her warm, slim fingers wrap as far as they can around his rough, much larger hand, how her hair tickles his arm, how her head presses against his shoulder. The usual cacophony of movie night goes on around them: Leo cannot resist critiquing the action scenes, and Raph cannot resist throwing popcorn at him when he does (although Raph also cannot resist griping about the hero’s dumber decision-making), Mikey bounces in his seat whenever anything exciting is happening, Casey laughs so loudly no one can hear the next line of dialogue, popcorn gets spilled and scattered around the room. Donnie lets it all wash over him without registering much, along with the frankly mediocre action-adventure plot unfolding on the screen. 

He comes out of his fog when the male and female leads get a love scene. She’s athletic, lean and strong, with black hair in a ponytail. The man is taller, bulkier, and she _climbs_ him, hands all over his shoulders, legs locking around his waist as they kiss, open-mouthed and hungry, and then the hero pulls her further up, squeezing her ass in both hands and burying his face breasts. The camera moves behind her as she throws her head back and moans. 

From behind, she looks a lot like April, if only she had red hair. Donnie’s suddenly even more conscious of April’s weight resting against his arm and side, and the heat of her skin, giving off a warmth that’s flowing all the way through him. Too warm, even; a trickle of sweat runs down his neck. As the couple on the screen moan and writhe together, Donnie swallows, feeling hot and prickly. It would be so easy to pick April up like that, to brace her on—no, not the kitchen table, but maybe the table in the lab, or better yet, _her_ table, the one in her apartment, and she’d squirm like that if he kissed her breasts, and— 

Casey mumbles something to Raph that makes both of them snicker, but they’re looking at the screen, not at Donnie. The scene fades to black, and Raph says, “Finally!” Leo shushes him, because the villains are talking over their plans, and Donnie’s too hot and his heart is beating too fast. He tries to free his arm from April’s grip. 

“Everything okay?” she whispers. 

“Just need a drink,” Donnie whispers back, and she nods, and he manages to extricate himself from the warm soft grip of the couch. 

In the kitchen, he opens the refrigerator door and stands in front of it for a moment, letting the chill flash-dry his sweat while he puts ice cubes in his glass. The cold is uncomfortable, but it gets his libido mostly under control. 

Until April comes up behind him and runs her hands over his shell, up to his shoulders and whispers, “That scene was pretty hot.” 

“You, ah—you think so?” Donnie closes the refrigerator without pouring anything into his glass and turns around—carefully, so he doesn’t clobber April with his carapace. 

“Mm-hm.” April slides her hands across his shoulders. “That could totally be us.” Her eyes cut toward the kitchen table for just a second. 

“Not _here_ ,” Donnie says. Not with his brothers and Casey in the next room, not here at the table where they have breakfast every day and plan missions. 

April smiles—no, smirks, it’s far too sly and tantalizing to be simply a smile—and says, “Well, maybe not now,” but she leans forward anyway, tilting her face up and stretching up on her toes, so he’s simply obligated to kiss her, isn’t he? 

Her lips are warm and salty, and her whole body is a column of heat pressed against his plastron, and she’s rubbing her knee against the outside of his thigh. He cups her ass in his hands almost experimentally—she’s firm and round there—and it really would be tantalizingly easy to lift her up. April makes an approving noise in her throat, so he does. She makes the noise again and starts nibbling her way down the side of his neck, and Donnie’s brain almost, _almost_ fails to process the sound of Mikey’s voice loudly proclaiming, “Dudes, we’re out of popcorn!” 

His brain _does_ correctly process that sound, however. “April,” he hisses under his breath, while he’s trying to put her down without dropping her. April huffs out a hot, exasperated sigh and pulls herself away, and when Mikey bounces into the kitchen, Donnie and April are side by side but a crucial few inches apart. 

“Hey dudes,” says Mikey with a grin. 

“Hey Mikey,” Donnie says, and opens the fridge again, both to cool himself off and to pour something—he’s not even looking at which soda he grabs—into his glass. “Making more popcorn?” 

“Nah, it’s brownie time!” Mikey whips a checkered cloth off the brownie pan with a flourish, whirls around, and somehow manages to hip-check April so that she’s thrown off-balance and right into Donnie as he’s leaving the room. Donnie is about to shout after him in irritation when April dissolves into giggles. 

“What?” Donnie asks. 

She clings to his arm with both hands, her grip warm and tight. “He totally did that on purpose,” she whispers through her laughter. 

Donnie stares at her, and then out the door after his sneaky, scheming brother. April’s hand slides up to the back of his neck. “It’s nice someone’s rooting for us,” she says, and then she pulls him down into another kiss. 

# 

Mikey’s humming tunelessly when he comes back from the kitchen. Raph scowls in his direction, and is about to tell him to knock it off when Mikey hands over a brownie. It’s gooey and too full of marshmallows and gummi candy, but it tastes good, and it’s hard to argue with a brownie, so Raph subsides. Donnie and April are still off in the kitchen, like it takes that long for two people to get a couple glasses of water. Like they’re fooling anyone. 

When they do come back, April’s cheeks are pink and Donnie has a dopey grin. They pause to snag some brownies out of the half-empty pan, and when they sit back down, April’s practically sitting on Donnie’s lap. No matter how hard he tries to focus on the movie, Raph can’t help seeing them out of the corner of his eye. He keeps noticing stuff—Donnie’s arm sneaks around April’s shoulders, big surprise, and then April’s stroking his leg. Raph sighs and takes a breath to tell them to knock it off, nobody needs to watch that. 

Before he gets the words out, Casey plops down more or less on top of him. “What the hell, man?” Raph hisses furiously. 

“Scoot over,” Casey whispers back. 

There is room for both of them in Raph’s favorite armchair, _barely._ If Raph shifts over just a little bit, Casey can fit his bony ass on the seat, and does, grinning and draping an arm over Raph’s shoulders. He even plants a smacker on the side of Raph’s head, laughing when Raph growls at him. 

“Guys,” says Leo. “Can you keep it down?” 

“Blame _him_ ,” Raph grumbles. 

“Shhh!” says Mikey, the hypocrite. Raph glares at him, but shuts his mouth. Movie’s almost over, anyway. 

Eventually the credits roll, and everyone yawns and stretches as they pick themselves up, and Mikey somehow manages to make it to the bathroom first. And Raph, finally, can get Casey alone in his room and say, “What the hell was that?” 

“What was what?” Casey says, and Raph scowls. 

“That... you...” He waves his arms for emphasis. And Casey is just playing dumb, obviously, because he shrugs and says, “Because it’s nice sometimes, you know?” 

That draws Raph up short. Nice. Was it nice? It wasn’t exactly comfortable, not at first, but it got better. The warmth was nice; the lair gets drafty in the winter. He has to roll the experience around in his mind for a little bit before he says, grudgingly, “It was fine, I guess.” 

Casey cackles and takes a swipe at him; Raph dodges. “Don’t do me any favors.” 

“Like you do me any favors,” Raph retorts. 

Casey shrugs and flops back on the bed. “Why do you have a problem with Donnie and April, anyway?” 

Raph groans. “Don’t start.” 

“I’m not starting nothing. You’re the one looking like you want to murder someone.” 

“I do not,” Raph grumbles, but Casey just raises his eyebrows and puts his hands behind his head. He’s actually waiting for an answer, which is one of the things Raph likes, cause he can be shitty with words and he hates when somebody puts the wrong words in his mouth before he’s done figuring out what he wants to say. “It’s not like it’s gonna work,” he says eventually. 

“It’s not?” Casey says. “Why not?” 

Raph can’t believe he’s hearing this. “No way. I mean... April’s pretty and smart, she’s got, like, options.” 

“Dude,” Casey says. “April has barely even looked at anyone in years. She doesn’t _want_ options.” 

Raph frowns and tries to think back. Has it really been years since April talked about a date? Huh. Maybe. “Donnie’s been crushing on her forever,” he protests. “She’s had plenty of chances.” 

Casey shrugs again. “So it took her a while to make up her mind. Big deal. Doesn’t mean she doesn’t know what she wants now.” 

Raph thinks about that one, thinks about April snuggled up to Donnie’s side that night, and the big dopey grin on his face, and sighs. “If she dumps him now—” 

“Bet she doesn’t,” Casey says. “Just chill out, man. They’ll figure things out, just like us.” 

Raph tries that idea on for size. Thinks about how Donatello rejected was going to be miserable to live with, but how Donatello with a girlfriend just might be insufferable. Wonders if April’s going to be around more often, and if she and Donnie are going to insist on being so damn schmoopy all the time. 

Then Casey hooks an ankle around his leg and tugs him toward the bed, grinning, and Raph decides to stop thinking about his brother for a while. 

# 

April follows Donnie into his room and starts pulling pajamas out of her pack. “Is it all right if I stay? It’ll be more convenient, with training in the morning.” 

He looks hastily around his room, because they hadn’t really discussed this and he hadn’t cleaned, but it’s not too bad. There’s a haphazard mess of books and datapads near the nightstand, and a bit more clutter here and there, but it's clean enough. “Sure,” he says, surreptitiously shoving a couple of the books under his bed with his foot. _All right_ is not the issue, really. There’s nothing he’d like better than to sleep with April close, even if she tends to elbow him in her sleep. 

April changes clothes while Donnie’s removing his own gear and putting it neatly away. He catches himself stealing glimpses at her out of the corner of his eye. It’s an odd sense of voyeurism, given that he’s _allowed_ to look. 

And then they get into bed and Donnie turns out the lights, and April’s a warm weight against him. She wriggles, finding a comfortable place to fit by his side. Her arm sneaks across his chest, and he moves his own to settle it around her. “I still think that scene was hot,” she murmurs. 

“Yeah,” he says softly, but he’s not thinking about the movie; he’s thinking about April in the kitchen, about April in the shower the other night. 

She shifts, and her lips are suddenly warm and damp against the side of his neck. She gets in a few more kisses, working her way up, before he turns his head and kisses her back. She makes a pleased humming noise and her arm tightens around him, her thigh crossing over his. “You didn’t say you thought so, too,” she whispers between kisses. 

She’s so warm. He hugs her closer, absently caressing up and down the curve of her spine. “She reminded me of you,” he says. 

Her hand starts wandering, feeling out the grooves and nicks in the bridge of his shell, and then brushing against the softer skin just above, and Donnie sucks in a quick breath. Her mouth presses against the join of his neck and shoulder. “Hmm,” she says. For a moment, she’s still, all solid warmth. Then she wriggles again, their legs intertwining. “I have to admit,” she says, her voice low, “I’m a little worked up to fall asleep right now.” 

He pulls her closer before he quite knows what he’s about to do. But her words echo the knot of energy insider him, and to tell the truth, his arousal dimmed while they finished the movie, but hasn’t ever gone away. “Same,” he says. “But, um, we’re here, and...” And his brothers and Casey are nearby. 

He can feel her lips curve into a smile, and her hand rubs gently against the lower part of his plastron. “Everyone’s turned in,” she murmurs. “How quiet can you be?” 

“What do you have in mind?” 

April chuckles. Her hand wanders lower, and she shifts, wriggling to situate herself under the covers. She starts leaving a trail of kisses down his plastron. 

It turns out that he can be as quiet as he needs to be. 

# 

In the morning, even after coffee, Donnie looks blissed out: he can’t stop smiling, his eyes are soft and distant, and he drifts through the kitchen at half speed. 

April smiles at him, still pleased with herself. Donnie mind is foggy with sleep, but more importantly, bright with startled happiness. Everyone else is yawning and fuzzy-minded, too, groggy resentment at the world from Raph and Casey, groggy cheer from Mikey. Leo is the most alert, sipping green tea, somewhere on the border between contented and amused. 

April licks yogurt off her spoon, and Donnie’s eyes focus on her for the first time. She’d gotten up first, and he’d mumbled “good morning” when he shuffled in for coffee, but now he zeroes in on her and says, “H-hey, April, I... how are you this morning?” 

“Fine.” She licks the spoon again and smiles. 

“Can I get you anything? For breakfast? Or do you need some more coffee? Or—” 

Her coffee cup’s still half-full. “I’m good,” she says, both amused and pleased he’s being so solicitous. 

Donnie smiles fondly. “You are, okay, good,” he agrees. 

Casey snickers. Raph groans. “Oh my God, Donnie, the rest of us are _right here_.” 

“What?” Donnie says, not nearly caffeinated enough to pick up on the nuances of the conversation. Raph rolls right over him. 

“I mean, we get it, you two are—” He waves his hand in a vague gesture that April thinks he might have borrowed from Casey. “—you don’t need to be such a _dope_ about it, just do your thing, and for the love of God or Darwin or whatever, _stop standing right in the middle of the kitchen, you’re blocking traffic_.” 

“Sorry,” Donnie says, sidestepping and looking dazed. The others are all openly laughing now, even Leo. He catches April’s eye and raises his teacup before saying, “Okay, guys, training in ten. Let’s go.” 

April finishes her yogurt and takes a moment to slide her arm through Donnie’s. He stops looking befuddled and smiles down at her. Everyone else is engaged in the usual good-natured grumbling and ignores them. 

In short, it’s a normal morning, and the simple normality of it fills her with joy. 

# 

_Two weeks later_

“So what’s new with you?” Irma asks April over coffee. She looks up and sees the smile that April can’t keep from spreading over her face, and her own mouth quirks into a grin. “Must be something good.” 

“You could say that.” April and Irma don’t see each other nearly enough. Irma’s only moved out to the suburbs, but most days it might as well be the other side of the galaxy. So it’s been... at least two months now since Irma got into the city and had enough free time to meet April for a nice, long chat. “I’m seeing someone.” 

Irma gasps. “You’re seeing someone? Seriously? The long, sad drought of April’s singledom is over?” 

“It wasn’t that bad,” April protests. “I was busy, and there’s nothing wrong with being single.” 

“There’s not, but who cares now?” Irma grins. “Spill! Anyone I know?” 

April nods. “It’s Donnie.” 

“Really?” Irma’s face lights up, and she reaches out and clasps April’s hand. “Oh, _good_. I’m so glad.” 

“Thanks,” April says, beaming back. 

Irma squeezes April’s fingers and lets go. “So how’s it going?” 

“Good,” April says. “Really good.” She thinks back over the last few weeks: how “taking it slow” has transmuted into a glorious sex life; how cold winter mornings are better when there’s a warm, sleepy pile of boyfriend in your bed; how seamless a transition it’s been from friendship to romance. 

She thinks about how happy they are. Donnie’s so happy that April can feel it whenever he’s near, a quiet glow on the periphery of her consciousness. It stands out to her even now. April’s never thought of Donnie as unhappy—he has his moments of sorrow, resentment, and discontent, just like any of them, but she would never have described him as unhappy or discontented. Now, though, his mood is a tangible contrast to the way he used to be. The other thing she’s noticed is that Donnie, happy and relaxed, spreads good feeling among his brothers like a balm. He’s a touch more patient, his humor a shade less barbed. She’s not sure he’s even realized, but she feels it: tensions ease, there’s less bickering, everyone is a little more relaxed. Whatever wariness they felt at first has evened out into a sort of fond indulgence of the two of them. The brightness of these feelings will even out with time, she suspects, but right now, while she can feel it, she’s going to enjoy it. 

Irma’s watching her with the same kind of indulgence right now, eyebrows up and a half smile on her lips. April smiles back. Whatever may come, this is her life for now, and this kind of normal she can handle. “Practically perfect,” she says.


End file.
